I respect Jonathan Glazer's idea for this movie and the themes of the banality of evil, but I feel there is a problem with the final product. People who need to see this movie, especially in today's climate, either won't, or if they do, they may not pick up on anything. Yes, it's obvious it takes place outside of Auschwitz, but anything more than that is very subtle. I don't think it would have hurt to actually make the Nazis seem bad at least once just to hammer the point home.
There are a couple of powerful scenes such as when you can hear the guards find a prisoner who stole an apple, but those scenes are rare. The different filming choices were interesting, but I found that they took away from the movie rather than add. It seems like I'm in the minority for how I feel about this movie and that's ok. I think the ideas this movie presents are strong, but only for people that might already understand those ideas and that's the problem. There are other Holocaust movies that show the true horrors much better and I think that's more important at the end of the day.
There are a couple of powerful scenes such as when you can hear the guards find a prisoner who stole an apple, but those scenes are rare. The different filming choices were interesting, but I found that they took away from the movie rather than add. It seems like I'm in the minority for how I feel about this movie and that's ok. I think the ideas this movie presents are strong, but only for people that might already understand those ideas and that's the problem. There are other Holocaust movies that show the true horrors much better and I think that's more important at the end of the day.