The life we enjoy is very much worth the sacrifice
Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2024
#2 : The Zone Of Interest
Jonathan Glazer examines the mundanity of evil in the voyeuristic, stomach-churning The Zone Of Interest, which plants the audience in the walls of the home of Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Höss, him and his family living a charmed life as a horrifying genocide is enacted next door. Glazer sits the cameras inside the meticulously crafted set and lets them roll, capturing the day-to-activity of Höss (Christian Friedel), his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and their kids, as they try on the spoils of their Jewish victims, chastise the help, and host a pool party, all soundtracked by gunshots and death. It’s truly chilling, quietly immersive, and endlessly upsetting, quite rightly winning the Oscar for Best International Feature Film at this year’s awards, with Glazer giving a spine-tingling speech about the continuing relevance of a film like this. The final few minutes with Höss looking to the camera, seemingly staring in the modern-day aftermath of his crimes, swallowed up by darkness and an atonal, swampy score, will stay with you forever.
There was a lot of pre-release hype for this but I got the feeling that when it came out everyone went "yeah, it's good" and just went on their way. I worry it might be a bit grim for my sensitive soul, but let's see...
We start with your average German family having a picnic at the lake and then follow them back to their nice house, with their nice garden and watch them do nice things. All very normal things like enjoying the garden, gossiping with the neighbours, having the mother-in-law to stay, berating the servants and discussing how to improve the efficiency of the crematorium in the concentration camp. So it all becomes clear that this isn't such a nice German family after all - but you're never presented with horrific scenes because it focusses more on the bureaucracy involved and the normalcy of day-to-day life.
I feared the film would try to present them as innocent of their surroundings, but there's no attempt to do so - Rudolf takes pride in his work and Hedwig knows perfectly well where all her nice clothes and jewellery come from. There's one interesting scene where she's told they have to leave their nice house and she's very upset - it's weird because you actually feel a bit sorry for her, whilst also knowing that's not the socially acceptable emotion here (and she soon manages to lose any sympathy you might have had!). The degree of complicity of the children is somewhat vaguer - which I assume is an artistic decision, possibly around the "nature vs nurture" discussion.
It's a film about the banality of evil and there's an argument that quite a lot of it is a bit too banal, but some of it works effectively, particularly the work meeting where they discuss "the Hungarian solution" where horrific outcomes are outlined with cool professionalism. It also does a good job with juxtaposition of image and sound where a menial task is undertaken whilst you hear shots being fired or some nice pictures of flowers are accompanied by screams - this is used effectively throughout the film.
There's also a most peculiar section filmed in negative exposure/night vision/something - I assumed the idea is to introduce a further aspect of juxtaposition and the internet kinda confirms that, but it REALLY wasn't obvious to me. There are also some very odd noises on the soundtrack - I was reminded of another of Jonathan Glazer's film, Beneath The Skin, which uses similar effects (and is a MOST pecuilar film, if you've not seen it). And whilst we're talking about weird things, it also has a most peculiar ending - I had to check the internet out to understand it (and I guess it kinda makes sense - a bit).
Christien Friedel (our first visit) and Sandra Hüller (our second visit after Anatomy Of A Fall) are the main characters and they are efficient without being likeable, which I guess is appropriate for the roles. Christien has to get a further nod for his absolutely dreadful haircut - he also gets to wear a ridiculously impractical white suit at times. There are plenty of other people in the film, but none of them really stood out.
Critical reception of the film was generally positive although some people didn't like the lack of structure or story. It did well at the awards though, picking up two Oscars for Best International Feature Film and Sound - Jonathan Glazer's acceptance speech picked up a lot of attention for basically saying "it's still not OK to kill loads of people, you know?". It also picked up an interesting double at the BAFTAs - Outstanding Feature Film and Best Film Not In The English Language (the first film to do so).
But - did I like it? Hmmm. Well. I'm not entirely sure anyone is supposed to actually "like" this film but I think you're supposed to consider it, admire it and promise you'll learn from it. So did I do that - well, I obviously considered it but did I admire it? Overall, I thought the idea was admirable but the execution patchily so - so I can't promise I'll be doing any learning from it (to my credit, I already knew it's not OK to kill loads of people). It's not a bad film and I think it's worth a watch, but I just don't think it's as great as it thinks it is - if you fancy it then it's available to stream on Amazon Prime or to rent in all the usual places.
Comments
Post a Comment