There exists a series of clips of Adolf Hitler that, to a lot of people, is actually a lot harder to stomach than his enraged speeches and hateful bellows followed by thundering cheers. They show him during his downtime, playing with his kids and charming Eva Braun, acting not altogether unpleasant. As nauseating as the more well-known footage of him may be, there is something singularly disturbing -- even horrifying -- about the reminder that, yes, this monster was in fact human.
The Zone of Interest, in a way, does for Holocaust films what that haunting clip does for WW2 footage. There are untold movies about this point in history that are horrific to watch; yet, they are movies we can accept. There is a disconnect between us and the ferocious, clearly evil Nazis. This movie, though it depicts next to no actual barbarity, may go down as the most harrowing of them all.
Like Klondike, it is a war film whose horror comes not from images of violence, but from the casual way that violence is treated by those at the center of war, only this time, it is not from the vantage point of traumatized innocents. As Jeff Zhang's review points out, this is not the sort of Holocaust film that puts the atrocities of Nazi Germany in the preferred blunt terms: "Its acts of evil -- oozing on the periphery of domestic rigamarole -- are designed to needle and splinter in the brain rather than suck the air out of the room: ashes of the dead in the river as nuisance, installing Auschwitz ovens like they're dishwashers, gunshots and wails of anguish heard but not seen..."
More precisely, the movie follows a German man as he simply, well, spends time with his loving family at their lovely home -- which, as it happens, is situated right by the walls of one of the deadliest concentration camps of The Third Reich, whose death and suffering are acknowledged only when they "intrude" on the family's peace. The man is Rudolf Höss, who was the Auschwitz commandant 1940-1943. One of the biggest stirs in the family is when he learns he may be promoted, possibly forcing them to move.
In a genre that often forces us to look into Hell, this movie forces us to remain blind. To be clear, that's not to say that the truth is hidden; we're painfully aware of what's being kept from us as we're put in the comfort in which people sat, and continue to sit, while watching genocide from afar. And it isn't just the audience that Glazer puts into this position:
The actors, particularly the leads Christian Fiedel and Sandra Hüller, are eerily convincing and they may have ended up eerily CONVINCED during filming. All but forced to immerse themselves in the lives of the Hösses, they sometimes weren't informed where exactly the cameras were located -- only that certain rooms in the Höss household contained cameras (sometimes they didn't even get to hear which ones). The actors go about the family's routines, presented to us in real time. This Caché-esque cinematography only strengthens the feeling that we're sitting somewhere in the house, watching; hearing what they hear; forced to ignore what they ignore.
Basically, this is not akin to such Holocaust dramas as Schindler's List, Son of Saul, or Come and See; however, it isn't quite a film like Shoah either -- a movie that, whereas some would insist that we have a duty to "depict" Nazi violence so that it's clear to future generations this mustn't happen again, suggests that it cannot be done, and so relies solely on the words of survivors, letting our minds fill in the rest. In the words of David Ehlrich, The Zone of Interest "splits the difference between the two opposite modes of its solemn genre"; other reviews view it as a reaction to Godard and Haneke's statements re: Schindler's List, accusing Spielberg of trying to make suffering entertaining.
This is indeed a film that sticks in your brain. It leaves us horrified, not that people like the Hösses existed and still exist amongst us, but that the movie may simply be a mirror -- here we sit, in a warm building in comfortable chairs as lives are ended by the day in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and several others that most of you probably haven't even heard of yet. There is a world of difference between being uninformed and being an SS officer of course, but complicity takes many forms and both types of person are victims of the same propaganda. Now, will you look past the wall?
By design, the movie doesn't have the sort of nightmarish visuals we may expect from Glazer; yet, there are shots of dark hallways and other pitch-black images where the darkness seems as alive and all-consuming as the liquid void from Under the Skin. (The music, by Mica Levi, during these moments was succinctly described by a YouTube commenter as "the Universe mournfully sighing".) While I recommend seeing the film in theaters -- in a setting where you can truly appreciate the sound design and purposeful imagery -- these particular sequences may work even better at home.
On certain screens, when you stare into pitch blackness, you eventually discover your own face in it.
The Zone of Interest, in a way, does for Holocaust films what that haunting clip does for WW2 footage. There are untold movies about this point in history that are horrific to watch; yet, they are movies we can accept. There is a disconnect between us and the ferocious, clearly evil Nazis. This movie, though it depicts next to no actual barbarity, may go down as the most harrowing of them all.
Like Klondike, it is a war film whose horror comes not from images of violence, but from the casual way that violence is treated by those at the center of war, only this time, it is not from the vantage point of traumatized innocents. As Jeff Zhang's review points out, this is not the sort of Holocaust film that puts the atrocities of Nazi Germany in the preferred blunt terms: "Its acts of evil -- oozing on the periphery of domestic rigamarole -- are designed to needle and splinter in the brain rather than suck the air out of the room: ashes of the dead in the river as nuisance, installing Auschwitz ovens like they're dishwashers, gunshots and wails of anguish heard but not seen..."
More precisely, the movie follows a German man as he simply, well, spends time with his loving family at their lovely home -- which, as it happens, is situated right by the walls of one of the deadliest concentration camps of The Third Reich, whose death and suffering are acknowledged only when they "intrude" on the family's peace. The man is Rudolf Höss, who was the Auschwitz commandant 1940-1943. One of the biggest stirs in the family is when he learns he may be promoted, possibly forcing them to move.
In a genre that often forces us to look into Hell, this movie forces us to remain blind. To be clear, that's not to say that the truth is hidden; we're painfully aware of what's being kept from us as we're put in the comfort in which people sat, and continue to sit, while watching genocide from afar. And it isn't just the audience that Glazer puts into this position:
The actors, particularly the leads Christian Fiedel and Sandra Hüller, are eerily convincing and they may have ended up eerily CONVINCED during filming. All but forced to immerse themselves in the lives of the Hösses, they sometimes weren't informed where exactly the cameras were located -- only that certain rooms in the Höss household contained cameras (sometimes they didn't even get to hear which ones). The actors go about the family's routines, presented to us in real time. This Caché-esque cinematography only strengthens the feeling that we're sitting somewhere in the house, watching; hearing what they hear; forced to ignore what they ignore.
Basically, this is not akin to such Holocaust dramas as Schindler's List, Son of Saul, or Come and See; however, it isn't quite a film like Shoah either -- a movie that, whereas some would insist that we have a duty to "depict" Nazi violence so that it's clear to future generations this mustn't happen again, suggests that it cannot be done, and so relies solely on the words of survivors, letting our minds fill in the rest. In the words of David Ehlrich, The Zone of Interest "splits the difference between the two opposite modes of its solemn genre"; other reviews view it as a reaction to Godard and Haneke's statements re: Schindler's List, accusing Spielberg of trying to make suffering entertaining.
This is indeed a film that sticks in your brain. It leaves us horrified, not that people like the Hösses existed and still exist amongst us, but that the movie may simply be a mirror -- here we sit, in a warm building in comfortable chairs as lives are ended by the day in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and several others that most of you probably haven't even heard of yet. There is a world of difference between being uninformed and being an SS officer of course, but complicity takes many forms and both types of person are victims of the same propaganda. Now, will you look past the wall?
By design, the movie doesn't have the sort of nightmarish visuals we may expect from Glazer; yet, there are shots of dark hallways and other pitch-black images where the darkness seems as alive and all-consuming as the liquid void from Under the Skin. (The music, by Mica Levi, during these moments was succinctly described by a YouTube commenter as "the Universe mournfully sighing".) While I recommend seeing the film in theaters -- in a setting where you can truly appreciate the sound design and purposeful imagery -- these particular sequences may work even better at home.
On certain screens, when you stare into pitch blackness, you eventually discover your own face in it.