Stalags

The Israeli documentary Stalags, by Ari Libsker, should be subtitled, How To Turn a Sexy Subject Into a Boring Film.

Stalags carries this line of inquiry forward, cramming an overwhelming amount of information and ideas into its 63 minutes -- not nearly enough time to explore satisfactorily all that it raises.

Unfortunately, Ari Libsker's hour-plus docu on this potentially mind-boggling topic meanders disconnectedly, as various experts, collectors and storytellers kick around anecdotes and theories that tend to cancel each other out.

Empowerment fantasies of a decimated and injured race, a kind of post-traumatic Jewish mother syndrome, or a bit of both? The film mulls these strange notions of the politics of pornography, that would have likely sent Freud's mind into a tailspin.