Steve McQueen’s latest project – a marathon documentary about the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam that weaves together reflections on the past and the present – has an ambition and expansive scope to match the Small Axe films, but feels closer in approach to his early gallery installation work than it does to his narrative film-making. It’s based on the exhaustively researched book Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945), by the writer and film-maker Bianca Stigter, director of the excellent documentary Three Minutes: A Lengthening, and also McQueen’s wife. The film juxtaposes succinct narrated accounts of the wartime stories linked...