‘The Natural History of Destruction’ Review: Sergei Loznitsa’s Abstruse Archival Meditation on Aerial Bombing in World War II
variety.comJessica Kiang Street by street, block by block, city by city, bombs fall. From way above, from the anonymous bombers’ point of view — which frames a hypnotically long nighttime sequence in Sergei Loznitsa’s new archive documentary — kilotons of explosives fall like rain, sprouting insignificant little splashes of fire below.
It’s the most obviously abstract segment of a film that more often deals in crisply restored imagery of rubble and ruination at ground level, but it feels emblematic of the overall effect.
Even with the roaring crescendos of Christiaan Verbeek’s deliberately intrusive, often overwhelming score, “The Natural History of Destruction” is frustratingly equivocal, maintaining a curious, lofty distance from the horrors of the civilian war experience.
Its most interesting ideas plume briefly, only to fizzle out like far-off firecrackers. The austerity of Loznitsa’s approach is hardly new.
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