The Zone Of Interest (spoiler free review): Switching Perspectives
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- čas přidán 8. 02. 2024
- In this video, I give a spoiler free review of Jonathan Glazer's new film "The Zone Of Interest". I discuss the ways in which filmmakers can play with objectivity and subjectivity as well as how this film successfully confronts the viewer.
The Zone Of Interest stars Sandra Huller, Christian Friedel and Marie Rosa Tietjen. The film is written and directed by Jonathan Glazer.
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Music:
"Alone Once Again" by Daniel Birch
"Lonely Ambient" by Delaytape
"Soothing Serenade" by Lite Saturation
"Sad Ambient" by Lite Saturation
www.freemusicarchive.org - Zábava
It wasn’t like watching a film, it felt more like voyeurism. Like I was watching some dark private home video. Not wanting to watch but perversely “zoned in” as it were. Truly extraordinary and Glazer is a visionary filmmaker.
Totally agree with your review.
This is very well put! I was pleased to see Glazer win the Oscar last night.
Excellent presentation. Well done. I saw the film last Friday, in an art house cinema here in Dublin, and have been mulling over it ever since. I think it’s a vital film for our time, facing head on the creeping fascism that seems to be all around these days, with its lies, denials, and twisted narratives. I despair at younger generations losing sight of historical realities, and being hoodwinked into supporting sly operators, whose agenda is to control and oppress, while concocting parallel stories to support their nefarious political aspirations. Jonathan Glazer has made a superb film, holding up a dark mirror, in which we can gaze into the past, and see the all too possible future staring back at us.
Thank you! And very well said!
One of the most important films of this generation.
Absolutely. And one of the most powerful for me. I just went to see it for the second time and I'm not sure I've ever been more moved and disturbed by a film.
@@jeremyhopkins577 how does it read on a second viewing? I was thinking about seeing it again (especially before it leaves theaters), but it was also a miracle that I got myself in there to see it in the first place. I've actively avoided movies about this topic, but this one seemed too brilliant to miss.
@@madamebouge1236 It's better on a rewatch. I observed and understood a great deal more having been through it once and left with a lot to ponder. I admired its structure a lot the second time. It's a well told story despite how little really goes on. Somehow on my first viewing I didn't notice the plume of ashes drifting down the river.
Absolutely agree! Yet to watch, but trying to bring myself to watch it. Feel like I’ll be a wreck after watching it.
Absolutely! It is especially relevant to today with the rise of Christian Nationalism and fascism!
Will watch on Friday when it's in our cinema. Saw the director Glazer's speech at Oscar night, deeply moved. It's critically necessary to remind the world about humanity when it's so lacking these days.
A genuine masterpiece. I can’t get it out of my head.
THE ZONE OF INTEREST movie.
Here are my thoughts after just watching "The Zone of Interest" and coming home. I had heard about the movie and watched many reviews. I had even heard about what the director said and felt he just demonized Jews while making a movie about the Holocaust and thus proves he is an ignorant fool. But I figured I must see this movie as it isn't maybe even about the family and more about the culture. So I went to see it.
I was pleasantly surprised for the following points:
1) The father is damned. How? He stands to process the Jews from the train and thus is doing the work on the days that matter for a death camp called Bergen-Belsen & the general concentration camp of Auschwitz. They don't show it, but then the reason must be that they want to show you the idea of not damning him. You saw nothing. The director tipping his hat to his hate, so to speak.
2) The wife is damned. How? She finds a diamond in toothpaste and wants more. Why? Because in the processing there is very little the workers are allowed to take from the Nazi state as all is categorized and documented. Stealing from the Nazi state a diamond is her crime. She wants to do it more as taking toothpaste will not be cared about with the Nazi state and she knows the diamonds are untraceable anyway unless documented by being found by the workers in the camp.
3) The mother-in-law is damned. How? She realizes a woman is suffering (a Jew) who out bid her in an auction and is not worried about her. She shows no caring for her or any of them (Jews). What she hates is the burning of human flesh, the noise, and the proximity of it all to her personally. She never voices a concern for her grandchildren and their safety or upbringing.
These are the three main characters and they all are damned. They are Nazis; they should be damned. Do all people who view this movie get this message? No. Some may think only of how they existed in a moment and chose and performed based on the stimuli that affected them. Of course they did. Don't we all?
What is the lesson of the holocaust? Let us look at facts in regards to Triblinka and learn the lesson of the holocaust. In 16 months, 68 Germans with the help of 360 Jews slew over 600,000 Jews. The field had some evidence of buildings having been there. Nothing would have been known of the facts of Triblinka had not the Nazi state kept meticulous records of their accomplishments.
What is the value of this movie? It does not show anything that would damn them. You only hear of the suffering and killing and know this man is in charge of all of it enough to be promoted to improving efficiency in all Nazi death camps and concentration camps throughout all of Europe and efficient enough to be brought back to the largest and most famous death camp and concentration camp in the history of the whole world: the death camp called Bergen-Belsen & the general concentration camp of Auschwitz.
History records that the Nazis in trials after WWII and over the radio in South America while still free abroad after WWII stated aloud "Six (6) million was not enough." This is significant. It means the Nazis did not care about the fourteen (14) million killed in the holocaust. Why should Nazis care about slaying Poles, gypsies, and dissidents in Europe against the Nazi state? The HONOR and the GLORY of the Nazi mindset was in killing the people of Yahweh in large numbers.
Americans today are now being asked in universities throughout our great land and through the speeches of the Democratic politicians within the Senate and Congress whether they will be antisemetic or if they support Israel. I find it absolutely amazing that the impetious for this question was Palestinians beheading Jewish babies or male children, burning alive Jewish mothers, and the fucking of Jewish female minors in cars as they drove them to Gaza Strip. It is abhorrent and explains why Yahweh's Holy Bible states upon Palestine being whole it melts in Isaiah 14:28-31 which is a time when Anti-Christ is identified for the whole world to know and this text states "None shall break rank" meaning Anti-Christ will melt inside Palestine whole not long after it is made whole per the text. Yahweh then declares in the Holy Bible He will destroy all nations off the face of the Earth for all nations will have been against Israel per Zechariah 12:3 and Zechariah 12:9.
Favorite World War II Movies
1) Amen (2002) #15
2) Life is Beautiful (1998) #25
3) Notorious (1946) #26
4) Schindler's List (1993) #27
5) Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) - Spanish with English caption #30
6) Midway (2019) #31
7) Come and See (1985) - Russian with English caption #38
8) The Sound of Music (1965) #69
9) The Wind Rises (2013) #100
10) Darkest Hour (2017) #104
11) Secrets of War [Oorlogsgeheimen] (2014) - Dutch with English subtitle #119
12) Dunkirk (2017) #162
13) Hacksaw Ridge (2016) #253
14) Saving Private Ryan (1998) #256
15) Grave of the Fireflies (1993) #321
16) The Zone of Interest (2023)
17) The Grey Zone (2001)
The Zone of Interest (2023) is not on my top 360 favorite movies, but it was a fascinating look at people living their lives and raising their kids near the most famous death camp and concentration camp: the death camp called Bergen-Belsen & the general concentration camp of Auschwitz.
You could believe the trailer that it is just about wanting the best for your kids. How do you like that spin? Listen to the director compare Jews living near Gaza Strip to Rudolf Höss while accepting awards for his movie and you wonder if his mother had her genitals burned by Palestinians, his baby brother's head cut off, or his younger sister raped in the back seat of a car as Palestinians drive her to Gaza Strip for nights of fun at least more than a month, if Jonathan Glazer would change his mind.
The way the stage feels as though it spins around like a rotating specimen under a microscope. Truly amazing film making
And it becomes even more shocking when we stop and realize that the death machine operated continuously for many years. It is still functional (to some extent), in the corridors of power today.
Thank you for your insightful analysis and for providing a reading of the ‘infra-red’ sequences. I was disappointed that Kermode and Mayo didn’t consider these more fully, as they might provide a fuller understanding of the film and a key to unlock meaning. Another way in which the film elicits meanings for its viewers is through understatement. The implied sexual indiscretions of Hoss and his wife reveal the deep levels of hypocrisy that are required to live a life that so fully exploits others.
Very well said. I was looking for my feelings on this and you articulated it.
Fantastic commentary on this film ! As a Palestinian during this current war , I couldn’t help but relate it to the treatment of the Gazans both locally and globally. Disturbingly relevant
The best video I've seen yet attempting to dissect this masterpiece of art. I like the point about objectivity because I think this films ultimate triumph is getting the audience to understand these are potentially "normal" people, but to never side with them, understand how they got there, but never ever agree.
I think it's strange how people aren't making more of the wife, she to me is more overtly sinister, she paints her lips red using their lipsticks, parades in their clothes and has a beautiful garden nourished by their remains. She is more exploitative of the situation and the real driving force.
Or the diamond she was boasting about, having found it in a tube of toothpaste and remarking- “I’m thinking of asking for more toothpaste” - finishing with a chuckle. Or the remark she made to her slave attendant- I could have had my husband spread your ashes. Scary woman!
I appreciate your insight.
I agree the wife is more terrifying than the SA officers.
She sees how she can benefit by the systemic destruction of a people.
Again when her husband tells her about the impending transfer. Her response is to stay without considering his feelings.
His response was
It never crossed his mind she would not go with him
I have to admit I am in the middle of watching. I rented it tonight and had to take a break.
It's these subtle scenes that make a huge impact.
I saw it a week ago and cannot shake it. A deeply moving film that makes you all the more aware of the atrocities without actually seeing them. There is one scene of Höss overlooking the selections just off the trains. You don’t see these poor people. You only hear the screaming, the crying and utter terror from the crowd as Höss looks on not affected
I was left stunned by haunting moments like that!
That "objectivity" instantly forced me to relate closely to it, to feel deeply, right from the very opening image, then more and more so as it went along!! Of course knowing basically the film’s subject matter before going in made that opening scene extremely impactful , I was squirming in my seat instantly as I was immediately confronted with the profound truth that "there but for the Grace of God go I!!" no matter how much we believe otherwise !!
This is very well put! The opening really sets the tone!
The most generous and incisive review I,ve encountered about this amazing film that chilled my mind, yet somehow touched my soul with a deeper awareness of an aspect of humanity, more powerful than a hundred books on the human psyche....thank you!
Thank you for the kind words! I love this assessment of the film!
It's soooo bold and profund but simple and at the same time solo huge and talks purely about humans and horror, it's amazing
Fabulous ,scary, so important! The sound throughout the film adds so much importance to what is going on... the cold Höss family is incredible!
Thank you for all the explanations... We all dream for a better worl but we are not getting there yet, I hope this film will open eyes!
I hope they repeat the showing in the cinema in the future. Definitely watch it again.
I’ve been watching almost everything I can find on this movie since I saw it
and yours is one of the best to encourage those reluctant viewers to see it NOW.
This is a lovely thing for me to read. Thank you!
Yes, I’m also watching everything I can find about this film! I appreciate this commentary.
Wow, I just got home from the theater, this movie is hauntingly sad and real.
One of the most disturbing, thought-provoking films I have ever seen: it does not only speak of the inhumanity that occurred close to a century ago BUT also reflects on the inhumanity of "living on the other side of the wall" rich with the normalcy and comfort zones, oblivious if not numbed by the atrocities happening just beyond. This work of Glazer is a celebration of film as a language of art and an agent of provocation and contemplation.
I saw it a couple of weeks ago. Amazing piece of art!
Great video. I've now seen the film twice. I can't stop thinking about it. Since I watched, I haven't been able to enjoy other films as much. They seem either trivial or predictable or boring in formal terms. I agree that it must be watched and listened to in the cinema. During the premier here in Łódź it was packed and the audience was remarkably quiet. People stayed for the final credits, which is uncommon these days. The film didn't depress or shock me, as most holocaust films do, but has got me thinking as films rarely do.
Well said.
After watching this movie, I’ve been finding random sounds like a garbage truck or other city sounds to be so disturbing. It’s like this film’s sound design is still haunting me. Absolutely excellent
Great video, thanks. I went to see this film alone at Everyman, there were six people including me in the screening. Everyone was silent and still from minute one until the roll of the credits - what a cinematic experience, one I am finding impossible to forget. This is when film is Art in my view. Beautiful
This is definitely a special experience to have in the cinema! Thank you for sharing!
Beautifully tragic film. Exceptionally done. I can’t stop thinking about it. I keep hearing the sounds. Incredible.
A brilliant analysis. I saw it last night and like many can't stop thinking about it. I will see it again soon & focus solely on the sound. It's that important.
Just watched. Agree with your wonderful analysis.
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing this. I saw the film a week ago and have been thinking about it non-stop. Your analysis is spot on and helped me understand Glaser's stunning work. I'll never forget the scene on the pier where the Hoss's talk about living their dream. That's when it all came together for me: Who suffers when we succeed? What lengths will we go to in order to realize our best lives?
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed my analysis! That scene alone is definitely striking for being relateable yet built on an utterly horrific context. Which is the essence of the whole film.
Who suffers when we succeed? That's exactly the question I have had in my mind since I saw the film. I think that question has always been here, deep inside, and this piece of art made it surface in extraordinary ways, albeit dark, darker than dark. A writer once did something similar in me but with a more poetic, ethereal touch. She asked what us, humans, did, or didn't do, to the word when we entered it. "(...) before everything is said, a dense cloud of air, almost immobile, floats on earth. The vegetal universe breathes already, and we, maybe, are wondering how to speak, how to speak to each other, without suffocating it." (my translation).
I saw it in the movie theatre and knew it will be iconic in the future. A masterpiece, a must see.
I had the same feeling!
I recommend watching this film at the Curzon (under the arches) at Hawley Wharfe in Camden. You could feel the vibration and hear the trains rumbling overhead intermittently lending an extra dimension to an already multidimensional depiction of an exceedingly despicable event in history.
Haha wow I love that! I'll remember to check that cinema out when I'm nearby!
The best movie I've ever seen. Still thinking about this movie all the time...💯
my fav review yet !! and wowow Jennifer Lawrence was right on the money, thanks for sharing that clip - I hadn't seen it before.
Ah thank you so much! That's really kind. Once I saw that Jennifer Lawrence clip I knew it needed to be included.
I have search multiple accounts on CZcams to get the best in debt review of this movie, yours is by far the best I have seen. Glad to have found this a/c. In all aspects this is an absolute master piece
This is a really lovely comment to give me. Thank you!
Yes, watching this film on TV would be a little like watching some footage from a museum, and then saying that you visited the museum.
Exactly!
Fascinating … loved the film and your thoughts on it…. Couldn’t sleep afterwards as so in my head.
Stunning and thought provoking, leading to ask important questions about one’s own values and personal morals that are challenged by the atrocities of our modern world.
Thank you for your probing review - you have put words to the sense of being haunted and chilled through to my core since leaving the cinema over a week ago. From the opening scenes my objectivity was compromised as my body memory connected powerfully with the language, culture and customs depicted. It was all too familiar and signalled so much unfinished business I need to attend to in my family history (Austrian) before I die. Jonathon Glazer is a true artist, as is Johnnie Burn, and your artistry and perceptiveness is also great food for thought as I embark on my own writing project. Thank you.
Wow! What an overwhelming comment! Thank you for your kind words. It's been great to hear how people, like yourself, have connected with this film. Wishing you all the best on your writing projects!
This film means so much to me , because my family was on the other side of that beautiful garden wall.
Recently I realized just how difficult it is to be objective. try it and see how you go.
What a great, great video you just made, congratulations! Its a wonderful review, interesting perspectives and comments you said made me agree with you, this is such a disturbing film, I honestly didnt know what to expect before I watched it, the coldness, the objectivity, the lack of feeling and sensations, it shocked me.. and yet so many details were hidden in plain sight, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this one!
Aw thank you for saying this! That's very encouraging feedback. I think the Zone Of Interest is definitely one of those films where you realise more about it in retrospect. It's incredibly haunting and masterfully crafted.
Every scene in this film was disturbing and unsettling.
I just saw the film in a theatre. I was totally engrossed, and at one point I literally felt like I was in the house. As a musician, I wanted to see it because I heard in the interviews with the director and cast that the use of sound was very important. It exceeded my expectations. It was amazing. Also, I've been interested in this time period in history since high school and so I've seen a lot of films about WWII & the holocaust. This one is the most interesting. But, it can't be appreciated at home. It has to be seen in a theatre.
It's been great to hear from musicians like yourself going to see this film! The sound of this film is so brilliantly mastered. It's also interesting to hear what you said about seeing/learning from previous films. I think this film taught me that there's still much we have to learn from this time period.
The impromptu sheet music in a can made by a Jewish inmate, and then being played by a Polish girl, evading death at every step, is a scene I will remember for a very long time.
I saw Zone of Interest. I've never witnessed any film like this. It's an amazing work of art. The truth outweighs the risk it took to let this film happen. I don't want to ruin this for anyone who hasn't seen the film, but the scene that put things in immediate perspective was the scene where he is fishing and what happens just after. This film has got me thinking about human condition. We can't let this happen again. But in a different method we are all capable of atrocities.
That fishing scene and the moments after are so disturbing! I agree with your assessment. It's a very clever film in how it challenges us with ourselves.
My husband and I just saw it last night. The scene that got to me the most was when the beautiful flowers came up but with a sad, horrible background noise. It was definitely an interesting movie.
I think it was definitely deserving of the Oscar for best sound for exactly moments like this one.
I’m watching all I can about this movie, taking it in and sitting with it.
Brilliant point-by-point assessment, I've often thought that analyzing almost all art forms is a highly subjective exercise. Still, your take on this film has me, once again, questioning subjectivity as it relates to analyzing various art diciplines I'm interested in, chiefly among them, film. Thanks for this very detailed review, I've not seen anything like it (and I read a lot of reviews as I'm a story analyst) I'll be back.
Thank you so much for the kind words! I really appreciate it.
I saw the film today and am deeply affected. I’m still mystified about the infrared scenes and would like to hear more about them. Jennifer Lawrence’s comment is right on target. In these troubled times I am constantly thinking about our complicity in what is going on, and how we accept the normalizing of it all. Excellent review!
I feel exactly the same as you do. Thank you for watching my video! I really appreciate it!
Thank you for this excellent interpretation of this film! I wish you spent a little more time on the infrared portions of the film. I thought they were really fascinating, but I wanted more ideas of why the director chose to shoot those scenes in infrared. 🤷🏻♀️
Haunting film.
I too saw this at the LFF premiere back in October, just a few days after the events of the 7th. Before the film JG read a beautiful quote along the lines of - and I'm paraphrasing wildly - imagine what we could achieve if we were all to put aside our hatred. This is an astonishing piece of work and a truly great film. I'm seeing it again this week; I can't say I'm exactly looking forward to it but I need to. An excellent review, thank you.
"imagine what we could achieve if we were all to put aside our hatred" is the standard 'moderate liberal' demand that we forget what divides the world and just hold hands and behave nicely. There's a war going on, the wealthy corporate class against the working class all around the planet. It can't be solved by expecting those who benefit from this war to lay down their weapons. They have to be defeated, which is why we have revolutionary socialism.
I loved It and can't stop thinking about It. It Will make film history
The ending just grabs you!!!
It's an incredibly poignant ending!
this is a film that gets better and better with distance. I will literally think about it for years to come
I saw the film at the London Film Festival, months before making this video. I don't think I could've made it without that distance so I completely agree with you!
Don't look away. Gaza
Extremely well done review ! Imagery and sound design of the feature film are extraordinary.
Thank you!
I like the way you highlight the sound cape- which I find is haunting and well done. Worth mentioning that David Lynch uses sound in this way in Earserhead - an industrial forboding pulse of eerie chills- and other films of his. I consider him the ultimate master of sound in movies. I will watch and listen to the The Zone of Interest again.
I hope ZOI comes to my area. I ABSOLUTELY want to see (hear) it.
I hope you get a chance to see it soon!
Lots of insight. Thanks
Hard to see the movie without knowing in advance where you are.. the tensión this crests is chilling, because the context in our minds... we know what they mean when they say “the ashes”... or when he plays “with the teeth” ...
This movie took me several days to understand it. It’s only with commentaire like yours, I began to comprehend the movie.
I agree that this movie must be experienced in a theater for the sound. The sound tracks was haunting and eerie.
At the London Film Festival, I remember a few of us all said we needed to sit and think about this film for a while. It's a very poignant cinematic experience!
Moving and memorable film…thank you for your review!
You're welcome!
Agreed about seeing it in cinemas. I would add that if(!) you watch it at home, try to watch it with headphones on. Sound is so important here, so good quality headphones will do that some justice.
Well worded and nailed to touch on many of the themes in thoughts during the experience. 👍
Thank you!
This film shows the story of the Shoah I've always been most interested in but is seldom told, not about the unimaganable suffering of the victims but about the casual cruelty of it's perpetrators.
Everyone is so helpful, so I have a second question: When Hoss and the boys are in the river, he reaches dow as if bitten and pulls something up with his hand and throws it,. I thought it might be a jawbone from a Jew, and that's why he was so disgusted. I read elsewhere that it was ashes that made him and the boys leave the water and get extensively scrubbed. But I didn't notice ashes. It was such a strong reaction, which meant that they held repugnance toward Jews, showing the viewer the degree of dehumanization and revulsion of the brainwashing - and yet wearing their silk underthings, lipstick and fur coat didn't disgust them. A great contradiction! Anyone's thoughts on what happened in the river? Bone, or ash or something else? Thanks.
I read that you could see the change in colour in the water flowing downstream. In an interview on the zone of interest with Martin Amis , he tells the problem they had with hundreds of thousand bodies (😢) being thrown in fields and how that contaminated the water , which people could not drink from the tap any longer . Therefore the need to "enhance" the crematorium. I believe that it is a human bone that he picks up , cleverly not shown clearly, so that I didn't fully get what it was. A great commentary , in my opinion, amongst other things , on environmental issues, and also, again, how their idyllic life could not be separated from the horror
The hard washing of the kids made me think of how we may try to erase wrong doing. Bdw, if German had not lost the war, we may have never been able to know the truth . History perspectives change all d time
It was a jawbone but the river was also becoming discoloured from ashes from the camps.
Very good review. I've had the chance to visit the set while shooting. It was an amazing and fascinating experience, since it did not feel like any other movie set. It was located 200m from the museum/camp and you could definitely feel that.
Thank you! Wow that must have been an astonishing experience. I can see how this felt like no other film set. A very surreal and poignant experience I'm sure.
If you love cinema go see this film in the theatre. Its amazing.
Love this review! Have subscribed. I am so much looking forward to this film.
Thank you so much! That's very kind. I hope you get to see the film soon!
The film is chilling and is etched in my mind forever.
I am anxiously waiting for the film to be shown here.
There are tracking shots in fairness - they use tracks like most tracking shots, just not a steadicam. Fantastic film, my favourite of the year.
Is it about Gaza?
Great review, thanks! My favorite movie from 2023. I hope it gets some Oscars.
Thank you! I suspect it is in with a good chance of winning at least one Oscar (if I was to guess I'd say Best International Feature and potentially one of the Sound categories).
Agree!!! 🤞🏼🤞🏼. The sound in this movie is mind-blowing.
I feel like it's such an important film, it should be required viewing for everyone.
I agree!
Lovely review. Loved the films originality.
Thank you!
Great work! I would like to watch it on the weekend in the cinema. I have to admit, that while I studied history in 1996 our professor showed us students some original Black and White Films from Auschwitz filmed by the Staff working and living close by that factory of death during these years.
A Really necessary movie.
Thank you!
An amazing film. I had no idea this was based on real life. I didn’t know the black and white girl was a real person. I wish I could find out more. You did feel like a voyeur in some way but also as a spectator if that makes sense. Like a piece of furniture watching the family life. So glad this was made. It reminds you that the horror was the normalization of evil. It’s too easy to be repeated in this country.
The girl was Polish. She was risking her life on behalf of Polish resistance army and Auschwitz prisoners of course. She made sure they got vitamins which they were lacking drastically. That’s one of a very few things that could be done at that time.
A couple of points. First l cannot recall a film where sound plays such an important part. The narrator here refers to that big glugging sound which you hear at certain points. Quite what it does l could not tell you. It’s very loud and it works. The second is the far off sounds from the camp so that you never forget what is happening behind the walls unlike the characters who do not hear it. It’s just like traffic noise to them. Second, a lot has been said about camera angles here. But the scenes all look as if they have been carefully arranged so that the effect is like looking at statues rather than people. The characters and settings appear real but not quite. It enables us to see them the way a scientist might look at a specimen.
Thank you very much
Very good video. I saw it last night and didn’t quite know what to think about it afterwards. But surely it has haunted me ever since. Should I see it again to understand its true message?
I would suggest sitting with the film first before deciding that. I couldn't have made this video without spending significant time process the film! It is certainly very haunting and subtle in it's approach.
The perversity of that wife is a phenomenon that we can see in some people (neighbours, celebrities, political leaders, ourselves). They put their well-being above any perception of ethics. If there had been the possibility of dampening the terrifying sounds in that place (acoustic blocking by double glazing) she would have done it. The screams of terror, instead of being a warning sign for her, were just a nuisance that was unwanted in the sea of comfort in which she lived.
Just saw it last night in the theater and had my breath taken away. I can't stop thinking about it, and I have visited the museum at Auschwitz before. This is not a film that will ever leave you, I think.
I completely agree!
Watched it last night. Unforgettable.
This is the kind of Holocaust film Kubrick may have envisioned, but couldn't quite capture, when he attempted to make "Aryan Papers." He would have instantly recognized in his own work Glazer's almost mannerist approach to plot, single-point perspective, mise en scene as character, and the innovative use of sound to create an ineffable feeling of liminal dread.
please say something about the portion filmed in negative. I didn't understand it. The first time it showed after Hoss put his girl to sleep so I thought it was a fairy tale. But then the negative portion showed (I think) Edwina's mother who gathered hanging clothes from the wind-filled ashes. Was that her? I would like to understand the negative film portions. Thanks.
When I was watching the movie, I thought the negative portions were fantasies of helping / people not being able to accept the status quo. Later I read in an interview with Jonathan Glazer that there really was a 12yr old Polish girl in the village who rode her bicycle at night to place apples out for the prisoners who worked on the railroad. They used her actual bicycle and a dress she still had. The woman died before the movie was released.
Yes they added this historical element of one righteous girl filmed in negative.
When a fact is ambiguous in real life (like whether one person or two shot JFK), we know there is a correct answer. But when something is ambiguous in a film, the viewer has a choice even if only one thing can be true for the characters. So my point is that when we see a young girl planting fruit along the road, we see her through a distorted lens. That opens a number of possibilities, some of which I’m still trying to process myself. She could be a real girl, perhaps a Jew hiding in the neighborhood. She could be a dream, perhaps even the dream version of Rudolf’s own daughter, who in the natural world of the film sits wakefully by the window and tells her father that she is giving out sugar. When we meet the night girl, she is adjacent in the editing to the Höss daughter and bridged to the real world by the story that Rudolf is reading. Thus she on a metaphorical level is also Gretel in the fairy tale, reversing the power of the witch by tricking her into her own oven. The white fruit, the white pebbles in the story, and Hansel's bread crumbs all overlap symbolically.
I know I may have some details wrong, and I know we do see a girl at the piano playing a spiritual song that seemingly corresponds to the song left on the ground for the night vision girl. So someone else may see some details in the film that contradict the ambiguities that I see.
@@kenstuckey6360 I love everyone's answers thank you! But there's no mention of the "negative lens" woman taking down hanging laundry. The girl with the apples suited an ambiguous fairytale, but the woman in the wind occurred in the evening when the smokestacks are pumping out ash. and right after, Edwina's mother has disappeared in the early morning. Since the family has many servants, this isn't an actual scene but it somehow reflects a possibility - a response others might have? If so, then the negative clips might capture a group consciousness of possibilities IN CONTRAST to the Hoss family. Thanks for helping me sort those out.
Thanks @@maggiebkny I'm so glad to know that it actually happened.
thank you !
And YES your review was a illuminating!
Thank you so much!
I have watched the movie this morning. Really love it. So, are they (the family) pure evil or not?
I went to see it twice in Minneapolis
I’ve seen it twice. A masterpiece.
Unfortunately, it likely isn’t playing at a single cinema in my entire state, which is one of the largest, spatially, in America. And it won’t be. Wyoming rarely gets art films, substituted films less often still.
I hope this changes and you get to have this cinematic experience!
@@filmcantdie It’ll never change, unfortunately. We used to have an art film series, where during the Spring and Autumn, they’d bring in a different art film every Wednesday night. That was wonderful. But that went away a good 10 years ago or more.
This is the best film for Oscar this year
I suspect it will win at least one Oscar!
Amazing film.
Well done and well said
Thank you!
We saw it at the historic Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds yesterday. As a graduate in the History of Film, this is truly amongst the most important - and most disturbing.
Great review.
Thank you!
I’ll watch it tmrw in theaters bc of this. Thanks.
Sawr it. Thank you.
Absolutely should win Best Picture
extraordinaria.
Great review. Subscribed. What were thoughts on Rudolph getting sick at the end ? Found that interesting. Perhaps his subconscious as he walked down to the dark of the stairwell.
Ah thank you so much! That's a really good question. I do like the idea that those are moments where he is physically struggling with his inhuman lifestyle (even though he doesn't realise it). This is one of the things I'm still debating how to interpret.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
The theory here was already excellently studied in the book Hitler’s willing executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. Everyday people committing and watching the most horrendous actions, taking part in it, then calmly go home to their families, and daily activities as if nothing had happened.
Where can i watch this movie?
The Zone Of Interest is still playing in select theatres. Well worth searching online to see if one is nearby.
It's on HBO max
I bought the movie