The Zone of Interest (2023)
February 1, 2024 11:36 AM - Subscribe
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Written and directed by Jonathan Glazer, loosely based on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis. Evil has never looked more banal - and that's the whole point, in this poster's opinion.
Written and directed by Jonathan Glazer, loosely based on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis. Evil has never looked more banal - and that's the whole point, in this poster's opinion.
Chilling and very well done, and amazing sound design and set design. I saw it a few days ago and am still thinking about it, especially the ending. This movie is a masterclass in saying a whole lot while showing very little.
I'd love to know what people thought of the sequences of the local girl hiding the apples and the significance of the color inversion outdoors vs. indoors? I initially thought these were dream sequences but then we see that they aren't.
posted by windbox at 3:38 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
I'd love to know what people thought of the sequences of the local girl hiding the apples and the significance of the color inversion outdoors vs. indoors? I initially thought these were dream sequences but then we see that they aren't.
posted by windbox at 3:38 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Same with me, windbox; I think we were meant to think that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:06 PM on February 1
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:06 PM on February 1
Absolutely stunning.
The scenes with the Polish girl: According to Glazer that is a result of the need to film at night in the countryside combined with their guiding principle of concealing the cameras and only use natural lighting. How do you shoot a scene in the dark? With thermal imaging cameras. It has a number of thematically resonant results, but it's a purely practical decision.
posted by Grangousier at 4:35 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]
The scenes with the Polish girl: According to Glazer that is a result of the need to film at night in the countryside combined with their guiding principle of concealing the cameras and only use natural lighting. How do you shoot a scene in the dark? With thermal imaging cameras. It has a number of thematically resonant results, but it's a purely practical decision.
posted by Grangousier at 4:35 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]
DirtyOldTown, I think you'd find the theater experience almost critical for this. There are some immersive qualities that, IMO, will hit much different at the scale of a theater. (Not that it shouldn't be watched otherwise, but if you have a choice, it's worth it.)
posted by cocoagirl at 4:48 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]
posted by cocoagirl at 4:48 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]
Based on the other Jonathan Glazer films I've seen, this has about a 50% chance of being something Comrade Doll and I could watch and appreciate together and a 50% chance of being something she nopes out on pretty quickly. The subject matter/thematic approach is in her wheelhouse, but his filmmaking style can go either way...
So I'm hoping to see it at home, as it's easier if we have the option for her to quit and go elsewhere as opposed ot her feeling trapped in the theater and me burning a lot of goodwill.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:42 AM on February 5
So I'm hoping to see it at home, as it's easier if we have the option for her to quit and go elsewhere as opposed ot her feeling trapped in the theater and me burning a lot of goodwill.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:42 AM on February 5
This devastating. CD thought so, too.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:57 PM on February 22
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:57 PM on February 22
This was devastating. Jesus I suck at typing.
Seriously, though. I was narrowly rating Past Lives ahead of Poor Things, but this laps them both, IMO.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:02 PM on February 22
Seriously, though. I was narrowly rating Past Lives ahead of Poor Things, but this laps them both, IMO.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:02 PM on February 22
So much has already been said above that I would said as well.
Rather than echo that I would like to comment this movie for doing a truly superlative job of letting the past look like the past without making the past old. What I mean by that is, the vast, vast majority of the time, if a movie is set seventy years ago, the look is created by finding pieces/sets from the era. Good on you, production designer. The thing is: those pieces are many decades old now. And they would not have been seventy years ago. All of the production details in this look a) of the period (mid 1940's) and b) as though they were just purchased/built recently. You don't see that often. And in this case, it was part of the story. Höss was simultaneously building a horrific death camp and his ideal family home, right next door.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:08 AM on February 23 [3 favorites]
Rather than echo that I would like to comment this movie for doing a truly superlative job of letting the past look like the past without making the past old. What I mean by that is, the vast, vast majority of the time, if a movie is set seventy years ago, the look is created by finding pieces/sets from the era. Good on you, production designer. The thing is: those pieces are many decades old now. And they would not have been seventy years ago. All of the production details in this look a) of the period (mid 1940's) and b) as though they were just purchased/built recently. You don't see that often. And in this case, it was part of the story. Höss was simultaneously building a horrific death camp and his ideal family home, right next door.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:08 AM on February 23 [3 favorites]
Very very striking film. Enjoyed it quite a bit, if that's the right word.
posted by knapah at 1:15 PM on February 25
posted by knapah at 1:15 PM on February 25
I think the fact that what is happening outside the garden is only hinted at makes it much more devastating.
I was puzzled too at first about the girl hiding the apples. But then later on we hear over the wall the consequences for one man of finding an apple.
At the end of the film when the lights came up in the cinema, everyone sat in stunned silence. I saw a couple of the women from the audience in the ladies' toilet as we were leaving. Generally there'd be a bit of conversation about the film, but on this occasion there were just no words.
Something that also struck me; I think Hoss's family came from very humble origins - his mother-in-law wonders at one point if the Jewish woman she used to clean for is in the camp. Hoss and his wife talk about the dream they've had since they were teenagers of raising a family in a lovely home - a dream they thought would never happen. This is one of the tenets of fascism - that people believe they have been 'kept down' by certain groups in society and only by eradicating them can they attain their 'rightful' place in society. That's what makes fascism so attractive to certain sections of the working class who feel disenfranchised and ignored, whose "jobs have been taken" by others, and who are aggrieved at their place in the world.
So, a film about history, but also about what is happening in front of us right now, the slow march towards fascism that we all said could Never Happen Again. Everyone should see this film.
posted by essexjan at 2:55 AM on March 7 [1 favorite]
I was puzzled too at first about the girl hiding the apples. But then later on we hear over the wall the consequences for one man of finding an apple.
At the end of the film when the lights came up in the cinema, everyone sat in stunned silence. I saw a couple of the women from the audience in the ladies' toilet as we were leaving. Generally there'd be a bit of conversation about the film, but on this occasion there were just no words.
Something that also struck me; I think Hoss's family came from very humble origins - his mother-in-law wonders at one point if the Jewish woman she used to clean for is in the camp. Hoss and his wife talk about the dream they've had since they were teenagers of raising a family in a lovely home - a dream they thought would never happen. This is one of the tenets of fascism - that people believe they have been 'kept down' by certain groups in society and only by eradicating them can they attain their 'rightful' place in society. That's what makes fascism so attractive to certain sections of the working class who feel disenfranchised and ignored, whose "jobs have been taken" by others, and who are aggrieved at their place in the world.
So, a film about history, but also about what is happening in front of us right now, the slow march towards fascism that we all said could Never Happen Again. Everyone should see this film.
posted by essexjan at 2:55 AM on March 7 [1 favorite]
One of the most ferocious horror films I've ever seen. Kubrick/Hitchcock would have seen this as stiff competition. The juxtaposition of the idyllic garden and the sounds of gun-shots, screams, the chimney in the background of so many shots puking out black smoke - fucking terrifying. Insane. The dissociation - when he goes with two of his kids on the canoe trip, which is then cut short by chemicals being dumped into the river, chemicals carrying body parts, no less. And, monstrously, they keep on.
We've talked about it a couple times. It's an amazing piece of film-making.
(The last bit, where he's going down the stairs and then there's the abrupt cut - was a powerful juxtaposition that manages to re-frame everything the previous twenty minutes have been about, as well as subverting the whole 'narrative' flow. This was a point we've gone over a couple times (we saw it here, in Berlin) and with our friend - that he's too sympathetically portrayed, he's good to his kids, works hard and in the superficial narrative (which a lot of people will not see beyond (just look to a certain orange-hued political figure)) he's not a 'bad' guy. I thought he's patently monstrous, as did the friend we saw it with. It's an issue with any portrayal of the monstrous ('even anti-war movies are pro war') and I thought the strength of that last juxtaposition. How will the people after us look at the last twenty years or so?)
posted by From Bklyn at 5:12 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]
We've talked about it a couple times. It's an amazing piece of film-making.
(The last bit, where he's going down the stairs and then there's the abrupt cut - was a powerful juxtaposition that manages to re-frame everything the previous twenty minutes have been about, as well as subverting the whole 'narrative' flow. This was a point we've gone over a couple times (we saw it here, in Berlin) and with our friend - that he's too sympathetically portrayed, he's good to his kids, works hard and in the superficial narrative (which a lot of people will not see beyond (just look to a certain orange-hued political figure)) he's not a 'bad' guy. I thought he's patently monstrous, as did the friend we saw it with. It's an issue with any portrayal of the monstrous ('even anti-war movies are pro war') and I thought the strength of that last juxtaposition. How will the people after us look at the last twenty years or so?)
posted by From Bklyn at 5:12 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]
The screaming over the flowers and the fade to red was horrible. And just before, Sandra Hüller proudly delivering the line that she's the queen of Auschwitz.
I'm glad they avoided like villainous visual characterization. Things are bright, pretty, new. I suppose the jawbone in the river is a little bit of "the horror cannot be contained", or Höss blowign ash from his nose into the sink; but of course it can be contained and it couldn't be stopped. We have things at the corners like the nanny in the attic who can't sleep; and Hedwig's mother seeing the fire and leaving. But overall the movie avoids forming a narrative, which is good.
The night vision scenes are beautiful. I suppose the Polish girl is a light in the darkness blah blah, but also, it makes her scenes where she is doing the only sort of moral anything, those are inverted and alien and the reverse of the natural world. The flowers and turnips and horses and dogs and happy children don't care.
posted by fleacircus at 11:15 PM on March 20
I'm glad they avoided like villainous visual characterization. Things are bright, pretty, new. I suppose the jawbone in the river is a little bit of "the horror cannot be contained", or Höss blowign ash from his nose into the sink; but of course it can be contained and it couldn't be stopped. We have things at the corners like the nanny in the attic who can't sleep; and Hedwig's mother seeing the fire and leaving. But overall the movie avoids forming a narrative, which is good.
The night vision scenes are beautiful. I suppose the Polish girl is a light in the darkness blah blah, but also, it makes her scenes where she is doing the only sort of moral anything, those are inverted and alien and the reverse of the natural world. The flowers and turnips and horses and dogs and happy children don't care.
posted by fleacircus at 11:15 PM on March 20
Hoss and his wife talk about the dream they've had since they were teenagers of raising a family in a lovely home - a dream they thought would never happen.
The American dream!
posted by fleacircus at 11:29 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]
The American dream!
posted by fleacircus at 11:29 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]
I just watched this film, unfortunately on Netflix rather than in a theatre, but I swear its power was undiminished. The sound design, and the decision to allow us to imagine the violence rather than attempt to show it to us, was brilliant. And the entrance and exit music-- especially the final six minutes--was absolutely unearthly. Oh, and the flash forward to the banal domestic work (a lot of that here, could say much about that too) of cleaning the Auschwitz museum and exhibits made my head spin. And Hoss descending down the stairs, every landing darker as he vomits at the foot of each set of stairs, on his way to begin the "Hungarian thing" hit very hard. A masterpiece of restraint that somehow balances silence and screams.
The Polish girl is based on a real person; her name was Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, and she was 12 years old when she was hiding food for prisoners. The film is dedicated to her (among two others, one of which is Martin Amis, who wrote the book the film is based on). And she did find a piece of music written by a prisoner, as shown in the movie; also, the dress the movie character wears and the bicycle both actually belonged to her. Such tremendous bravery. Apparently Jonathan Glazer was able to meet her just before filming started; she died shortly after.
posted by jokeefe at 8:40 PM on April 21 [2 favorites]
The Polish girl is based on a real person; her name was Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, and she was 12 years old when she was hiding food for prisoners. The film is dedicated to her (among two others, one of which is Martin Amis, who wrote the book the film is based on). And she did find a piece of music written by a prisoner, as shown in the movie; also, the dress the movie character wears and the bicycle both actually belonged to her. Such tremendous bravery. Apparently Jonathan Glazer was able to meet her just before filming started; she died shortly after.
posted by jokeefe at 8:40 PM on April 21 [2 favorites]
A good analysis of the film here by Thomas Flight: Why the Zone of Interest Doesn't Let You See
The video essay brought up a thought I had after watching the movie. How much does this movie owe to previous films about the Holocaust? If a young person with very little knowledge of the Holocaust were to watch Zone of Interest, what impact would it have on them? As a mature audience, we understand immediately what the fur coat means, and we can picture what's beyond the wall of the garden, but someone with little to no background knowledge would take a lot longer to put the pieces together. Not that it's a bad thing, but I'm wondering if there are other "advanced viewing" movies like this.
posted by Rora at 11:50 AM on April 26
The video essay brought up a thought I had after watching the movie. How much does this movie owe to previous films about the Holocaust? If a young person with very little knowledge of the Holocaust were to watch Zone of Interest, what impact would it have on them? As a mature audience, we understand immediately what the fur coat means, and we can picture what's beyond the wall of the garden, but someone with little to no background knowledge would take a lot longer to put the pieces together. Not that it's a bad thing, but I'm wondering if there are other "advanced viewing" movies like this.
posted by Rora at 11:50 AM on April 26
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posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:03 PM on February 1