How does one depict the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust? In “The Most Precious of Cargoes” (titled “LA PLUS PRÉCIEUSE DES MARCHANDISES” in French), it’s initially from a significant remove where the terrifying roar of a train hurtling by says all we need to know.
However, the longer it all goes on, the more we are brought right into the camps themselves. The result is a film that feels like it’s pulling itself in different directions, going from leaning hard on narration to spell everything out in one moment to being delicately melancholic in another. Based on Jean-Claude Grumberg’s 2019 novel of the same name and with a screenplay by Grumberg and director Michel Hazanavicius (“Final