Shot almost exclusively on location, with extensive use of newsreelfootage, this fiction film has with the passing of time become a historicalrecord emblematic of the suffering of families during the Holocaust. Set inPoland and Germany, it is the chronicle of a family separated on their way to aconcentration camp. The son, David, manages to escape and joins the Jewishpartisans, while of the others, only the mother survives the camps. Along withDistant Journey (Terezin Ghetto), Long Is the Road "was one of the firstfiction films to attempt to represent Nazi concentration camps from the point ofview of the inmates (in) scenes of Auschwitz, starkly evoked in the studiothrough the use of stylization and close-ups." (J. Hoberman) Shot in 1947 inU.S.-occupied Germany, the film was based on writer-actor Israel Becker's ownexperiences during the war.