I found it fascinating. Like Resnais' early narrative work, the camera feels outside of time and space, drifting along faces of statues, bizarre architectural compositions and corners of the library that a lesser documentarian might only bestow a passing glance. That whimsical, omniscient spectatorship and first person narrative acts like NPR by way of Malick, and gives the library a palpable flesh-and-blood quality.

It's no hard hitting documentary, but it does a good job of giving you a sense of just how large of an endeavour the National Library is. It's also a strong reminder of the cultural importance such archives have, and made me wish even a fraction of the effort could be put towards preserving newer media like film, music and video games. The fact that it was well shot and pleasantly presented didn't hurt either.

Over-stylized and barely interesting.

Well crafted, but it didn't really give me anything.

An early Resnais short. It's a fascinating look at the meticulous, obsessive work that goes into cataloging, retrieving, and maintaining the massive collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale. Resnais' camera is constantly on the move, gently but purposefully gliding along corridors, up elevators, over shelves. The narration is poetic and sometimes haunting. While watching, I wondered how the process has changed over the years, how much technology has both facilitated and complicated matters.

Interesting in parts, notably the part about the rarest artifacts at the museum. But most of it consisted of tedious descriptions of the library's work methods and very flowery musing on the preservation of human knowledge by the narrator. Overall I didn't take much away from it.