Synopsis
"Diamonds of the Night" (Démanty noci, 1964) is Jan Němec's debut — a Czech New Wave film you can watch online on iFILM.
Two Jewish teenagers jump from a Nazi transport train and run into the forest. No food, no direction, just forward. Němec strips the film down to sensation: labored breathing, the crack of twigs, mud. And in the moments when the boys reach the edge of collapse, memory and hallucination flood in — a young woman in a street, bread, warmth — before the forest reasserts itself. At 67 minutes, it doesn't feel short. It feels relentless.
Based on a story by Arnošt Lustig, who drew from his own time in the camps, the film stays close to the body rather than to history. No speeches. No context laid out for the viewer. Stream "Diamonds of the Night" (1964) online on iFILM.
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