Finally saw it.
It's certainly a meticulously made film and will likely win two Oscars - International Film and Best Sound but there's really nothing new here.
We all know that human monsters like Hüller's character love their children - nothing new there. Her character was one of the film's two main characters so I'm not getting why she was being pushed for a Best Supporting Actress award for that performance other than to not compete in the Best Actress category with her superior performance in Anatomy of a Fall. Kind of like Kate Winslet at the 2008 awards.
I was amused to learn that the annoying dog that followed Hüller around was her own pet dog. She had a more credible relationship with the dog in Anatomy of a Fall.
The most interesting character to me was the little girl who left food for the prisoners at night. She was based on a real-life little girl who was a member of the Polish resistance who was employed as a coal miner as a cover for her leaving her house at night. Glazer had met her just before she died at the age of 90 and wrote her into the film using her own coat and bicycle. The problem is that her character isn't explained in the film. You have to go to IMDb.'s trivia page to know that.
It's good, but it could have been better if things like that and the contents of the letter shown to the grandmother had been explained.
The Zone of Interest reviews
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Big Magilla
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Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
I saw it many weeks ago, and ranked it number two among this year’s Best Picture nominees. I think it’s an exquisite piece of art, beautifully photographed, and bone chilling. The sound design haunts me to this day. I’m very hopeful that it will win best sound.
Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
I saw it and wrote about it in the general review thread:flipp525 wrote
Has literally no one seen this besides me and Tee? Strange how little discussion there is about what I find one of the best films of the year.
I pointed out below that it should be a strong contender for Best Sound (which I stated pre-BAFTA win). I will be predicting it at the Oscars, Oppenheimer be damned.
This is what I wrote when I first saw it but it's grown in my memory ever since. It's full of interesting, unique, and mysterious moments but I was a little annoyed by how... one thing it is throughout, as evidenced by the fact that I used the word "plot" three times in a line and a half. What I didn't mention was the ending, which I think it is a fantastic and bothersome conversation piece. Do we learn? But sitting through The Zone of Interest I was full of admiration but frequently that was the only thing I was experiencing.The Zone of Interest has the premise and the story but I don't think the plot worked for me. There is no plot. I think it could've used a little more plot, to dare us to engross ourselves in their lives a little more. I think it might have worked better on me if I knew nothing about it going in, like the Cannes audience must have. Once you get past the hook of boring domestic life never to the concentration camp, there's not much else going on until the ending. There are glimmers of intrigue here and there, but (big problem) I'm not sure it sells the banality of evil that well. Shouldn't the banality of evil but a little less... banal? Huller is pretty knowing monster. The ending is terrific and open to a lot of interpretations, all of them quite good. I'm mixed but respectful towards it if only because I like its existence. We should humanize them so they can be recognized.
It definitely should win Best Sound IMO. Right now, I might side with The Teacher's Lounge for Best International Film.
"How's the despair?"
Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
I watched it yesterday and liked it, though it will end up ranking fairly low for the films on this year's Best Picture ballot.
I could see it being a contender for Best Sound as you mentioned.
I could see it being a contender for Best Sound as you mentioned.
Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
Has literally no one seen this besides me and Tee? Strange how little discussion there is about what I find one of the best films of the year.
I pointed out below that it should be a strong contender for Best Sound (which I stated pre-BAFTA win). I will be predicting it at the Oscars, Oppenheimer be damned.
I pointed out below that it should be a strong contender for Best Sound (which I stated pre-BAFTA win). I will be predicting it at the Oscars, Oppenheimer be damned.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
Upon further reflection, I have a different take now on the grandmother character.
I think we have to assume she went back home, wherever that was. I think she mentions when she arrives that she took a train from Krakow(?) Whatever was in the letter to Hedwig must have been fairly damning; you can see it in Hüller's face when she quickly stuffs it in the fireplace and begins shoving down her breakfast before being a total cunt at her servant. I think the grandmother realized after seeing (and perhaps smelling) the operation herself that it was irreconcilable with her morals. Her expression of horror as she's watching the smokestacks at night seemed to indicate that she realized how wrong it actually was. It seems insane that it would take such a firsthand experience to condemn something so clearly evil, but I think that's precisely what the movie is tackling thematically.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
Mister Tee is correct that the film version of The Zone of Interest is a large deviation from the source novel. There were two main characters of the novel erased from the film (the Kapo, I would say, might just be that one Jewish man who delivered the fur coat). But the essence of the novel is very much captured in a stripped-down version on film. Because of that, I think this is a successful adaptation, adapted for a new medium. The small scene of all the SS talking about the large number of Hungarian Jews coming their way to “process” at the camp is a huge plot point of the novel, just for the sake of comparison. The commandant is also a huge drunk in the book and is often wasted when he does selection.
The day-to-day normalcy and, I guess, the “matter-of-fact-ness” of the whole situation is really what was so effective for me about this film and legitimizes it for me as something new in the Holocaust genre. And some of those images are just so beyond striking especially the smoke from the arriving train billowing in the background as the Höss family is enjoying a backyard picnic.
I’m not sure that “new information” is necessary to make this a successful film. I think turning the camera almost completely away from the usual and expected horrific images of the Holocaust and viewing the whole thing from the point-of-view of the villains is a bold choice that allows the horror to creep in in different ways. It is an interestingly oblique way to approach this subject. Why is that one little girl popping up in different parts of the house? The children seem to intuitively know that something isn’t quite right (even the screaming baby seems to sense it). Why did the grandmother leave so suddenly? I do wish that one or two things, like whatever her mother wrote in that note, were slightly more spelled out.
One thing I wondered about as being historically accurate was the smell. By all accounts the smell of the burned corpses of the prisoners hung over the camp and the surrounding area. Surely the family would have noticed it. The smell of their “zone of interest” is addressed in the novel.
Never have I seen a film use sound in a more effective way. The kind of death engine humming in the background of the film (with equal parts guns shots, machinery grinding, burning, and people screaming) was haunting. This seems like a solid candidate for Best Sound this year unless they are just going to go full Oppenheimer everywhere.
I thought Sandra Hüller was just chilling in this in a very almost common way. It helped that she was shlumping around her house like a brood mare half the time. I thought the scene where she is wearing one of the victim’s fur coats was so effective in capturing her character. The fact that she closed the door and had the fur delivered to her discreetly in a canvas sack points to the fact that some part of her knows that it’s wrong what she is doing.
I’m still processing this but I think this is a solid film that was correctly recognized for directing and screenplay. Seeing how thin the Best Supporting Actress lineup is this year, Hüller would have made my list (along with Claire Foy and Rosamund Pike).
The day-to-day normalcy and, I guess, the “matter-of-fact-ness” of the whole situation is really what was so effective for me about this film and legitimizes it for me as something new in the Holocaust genre. And some of those images are just so beyond striking especially the smoke from the arriving train billowing in the background as the Höss family is enjoying a backyard picnic.
I’m not sure that “new information” is necessary to make this a successful film. I think turning the camera almost completely away from the usual and expected horrific images of the Holocaust and viewing the whole thing from the point-of-view of the villains is a bold choice that allows the horror to creep in in different ways. It is an interestingly oblique way to approach this subject. Why is that one little girl popping up in different parts of the house? The children seem to intuitively know that something isn’t quite right (even the screaming baby seems to sense it). Why did the grandmother leave so suddenly? I do wish that one or two things, like whatever her mother wrote in that note, were slightly more spelled out.
One thing I wondered about as being historically accurate was the smell. By all accounts the smell of the burned corpses of the prisoners hung over the camp and the surrounding area. Surely the family would have noticed it. The smell of their “zone of interest” is addressed in the novel.
Never have I seen a film use sound in a more effective way. The kind of death engine humming in the background of the film (with equal parts guns shots, machinery grinding, burning, and people screaming) was haunting. This seems like a solid candidate for Best Sound this year unless they are just going to go full Oppenheimer everywhere.
I thought Sandra Hüller was just chilling in this in a very almost common way. It helped that she was shlumping around her house like a brood mare half the time. I thought the scene where she is wearing one of the victim’s fur coats was so effective in capturing her character. The fact that she closed the door and had the fur delivered to her discreetly in a canvas sack points to the fact that some part of her knows that it’s wrong what she is doing.
I’m still processing this but I think this is a solid film that was correctly recognized for directing and screenplay. Seeing how thin the Best Supporting Actress lineup is this year, Hüller would have made my list (along with Claire Foy and Rosamund Pike).
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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Mister Tee
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Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
The Zone of Interest is pretty immaculate as a piece of craft. Images are crisp and vivid, yet also suggestive: we catch things out of the corners of our eyes, like barbed wire, or smoke in the distance. The same is true aurally: we not only hear the sound of distant gunshots, we also catch snatches of conversation that obliquely let us know what's going on just out of sight, or down the street. As the film proceeds, we see more and more minutia that reinforces the central idea: Huller's character trying on a fur coat obviously ripped from an Auschwitz prisoner; a conversation on upgrading the crematoria that, while horrifying, is, to those in the discussion, purely an engineering question; Huller's mother's irritation at being outbid for the curtains of the Jewish family across the street, her clear attitude that she deserved them more than the family ever could have. These are all interesting stray elements, and they add up to something: a full, damning portrait of a German populace far more complicit in the Nazi horror than some would like to pretend. The film chooses a style -- oblique, neutral observer -- from the opening shot, and almost never strays from it (the exceptions being a few photo-negative scenes, about which more later). Nothing much happens in terms of plot -- apart from a brief (ultimately extraneous) argument about the commandant's family being forced to leave its bucolic home-grounds -- but the film moves swiftly: when I realized things were wrapping up, I was startled that an hour 45 had passed so quickly. This film is worthy of admiration: Glazer has composed an impressive objet d'art, an achievement worth noting.
I presume you hear a "but" trying to push its way through that previous paragraph, and, yeah, there's a fairly big one. Someone was facetious in tweeting "The 'Discuss Zone of Interest without mentioning Banality of evil' Challenge!" –- but it gets at something. The film is, essentially, Arendt's phrase in extended visual form. Which is fine: it's hard to imagine anyone encapsulating it better. The problem, is I don't think it's anything more than that. It tells us what many of us have known about the Holocaust for a very long time; doesn't offer us any particularly new insight. When I've spent most of two hours watching a film, I expect to carry more away; to have thoughts/ideas/themes to mull over. Now, I've read reviews, professional and amateur, claiming to find deeper meaning in all this. I can't deny anyone their honest reaction. But, at the same time, I can't help feeling it’s the sort of film that encourages its audiences to believe they’ve seen something hugely profound -- both because of subject matter, and the cold/deadpan style – while I’m more inclined to think it simply is what it is. (It reminds me a bit of how people respond to Pinter stuff like Betrayal: the hushed tones prompting people to think there must be a ton going on beneath the surface.)
To return to my original response: I’m not meaning to knock the film. It being simply what it is doesn’t diminish it in my eyes; it’s impressive. But it’s, overall, not my kind of movie; I far more admire it than like it.
And I will express surprise that this was Oscar-nominated for screenplay over something like Killers of the Flower Moon. I know we’re all “screenplays are more than dialogue” super-sophisticates these days, but, generally, a film with this flimsy a story line and limited dialogue -– however elegantly suggestive those bits of dialogue are -– wouldn’t be strong candidates. Only Huller’s don’t-want-to-move screed has anything like the kind of rhetorical flash I generally expect from screenplay nominees.
In that vein, I found myself wondering, how could something this ephemeral have ever worked as a novel? Then I read flipp below, and got what I presume is the answer: the film must stray pretty far from its source. To answer flipp’s question, unless I missed something, two of those three characters you describe are absent from the film: this is the commandant-plus-family’s story from start to almost-finish.
About those photo-negative sequences: While I was watching them, I had no idea what was going on. I’ve read since that Glazer had read stories about a young girl who surreptitiously placed apples in spots for prisoners to discover them, and this was his way of honoring that. It’s an interesting anecdote -– and, once you’ve heard it, it makes sense why Glazer films these scenes as he does: suggesting they take place in a bizarro, some-Germans-were-good universe. Problem is, without this knowledge, I had no idea what the scenes were about or what they were doing in the film. That goes double for the moment when this same young girl played a prisoner-written ballad on piano -– I spent that scene wondering who this person was (a visitor to the Hoss household?). It wasn't till it was about over that I realized it was a flash-forward.
As far as the performances: it’s not really an actor’s film, and only Huller manages to stand out much. She’d be a better supporting nominee than some on the roster, but I’d rank Cruz/Foy/Pike, at least, ahead of her in the shoulda-been-there queue.
I presume you hear a "but" trying to push its way through that previous paragraph, and, yeah, there's a fairly big one. Someone was facetious in tweeting "The 'Discuss Zone of Interest without mentioning Banality of evil' Challenge!" –- but it gets at something. The film is, essentially, Arendt's phrase in extended visual form. Which is fine: it's hard to imagine anyone encapsulating it better. The problem, is I don't think it's anything more than that. It tells us what many of us have known about the Holocaust for a very long time; doesn't offer us any particularly new insight. When I've spent most of two hours watching a film, I expect to carry more away; to have thoughts/ideas/themes to mull over. Now, I've read reviews, professional and amateur, claiming to find deeper meaning in all this. I can't deny anyone their honest reaction. But, at the same time, I can't help feeling it’s the sort of film that encourages its audiences to believe they’ve seen something hugely profound -- both because of subject matter, and the cold/deadpan style – while I’m more inclined to think it simply is what it is. (It reminds me a bit of how people respond to Pinter stuff like Betrayal: the hushed tones prompting people to think there must be a ton going on beneath the surface.)
To return to my original response: I’m not meaning to knock the film. It being simply what it is doesn’t diminish it in my eyes; it’s impressive. But it’s, overall, not my kind of movie; I far more admire it than like it.
And I will express surprise that this was Oscar-nominated for screenplay over something like Killers of the Flower Moon. I know we’re all “screenplays are more than dialogue” super-sophisticates these days, but, generally, a film with this flimsy a story line and limited dialogue -– however elegantly suggestive those bits of dialogue are -– wouldn’t be strong candidates. Only Huller’s don’t-want-to-move screed has anything like the kind of rhetorical flash I generally expect from screenplay nominees.
In that vein, I found myself wondering, how could something this ephemeral have ever worked as a novel? Then I read flipp below, and got what I presume is the answer: the film must stray pretty far from its source. To answer flipp’s question, unless I missed something, two of those three characters you describe are absent from the film: this is the commandant-plus-family’s story from start to almost-finish.
About those photo-negative sequences: While I was watching them, I had no idea what was going on. I’ve read since that Glazer had read stories about a young girl who surreptitiously placed apples in spots for prisoners to discover them, and this was his way of honoring that. It’s an interesting anecdote -– and, once you’ve heard it, it makes sense why Glazer films these scenes as he does: suggesting they take place in a bizarro, some-Germans-were-good universe. Problem is, without this knowledge, I had no idea what the scenes were about or what they were doing in the film. That goes double for the moment when this same young girl played a prisoner-written ballad on piano -– I spent that scene wondering who this person was (a visitor to the Hoss household?). It wasn't till it was about over that I realized it was a flash-forward.
As far as the performances: it’s not really an actor’s film, and only Huller manages to stand out much. She’d be a better supporting nominee than some on the roster, but I’d rank Cruz/Foy/Pike, at least, ahead of her in the shoulda-been-there queue.
Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
I recently read The Zone of Interest and will be very interested to see how this is translated to film.
Intelligently written and rather unflinching, it’s told in the viewpoints of a highly connected SS officer, the commandant of the camp (Auschwitz) and a Jewish kapo who is in charge of figuring out how to dispose of an increasingly high body count of camp victims. I feel like the “banality of evil” is an overused phrase when referring to the Holocaust, but it could not be more apt to describe what’s going on in this novel. The most shocking thing to me was how much humor comes out in the dialogue of these totally abhorrent and very average people. It really is just another day at the office for them (“Ugh, I have to get up early this morning to do the ‘selection’ but I’m hungover.”)
If Glazer has gotten this right, as all signs seem to be pointing to, I can definitely see it being nominated for Best Picture (we all know how much the Academy loves its Holocaust films). Sandra Hüller’s role is also quite juicy.
Intelligently written and rather unflinching, it’s told in the viewpoints of a highly connected SS officer, the commandant of the camp (Auschwitz) and a Jewish kapo who is in charge of figuring out how to dispose of an increasingly high body count of camp victims. I feel like the “banality of evil” is an overused phrase when referring to the Holocaust, but it could not be more apt to describe what’s going on in this novel. The most shocking thing to me was how much humor comes out in the dialogue of these totally abhorrent and very average people. It really is just another day at the office for them (“Ugh, I have to get up early this morning to do the ‘selection’ but I’m hungover.”)
If Glazer has gotten this right, as all signs seem to be pointing to, I can definitely see it being nominated for Best Picture (we all know how much the Academy loves its Holocaust films). Sandra Hüller’s role is also quite juicy.
Last edited by flipp525 on Wed Jan 31, 2024 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
Oh wow.dws1982 wrote
Martin Amis, who wrote the novel that this film was based on, died yesterday.
"How's the despair?"
Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
Martin Amis, who wrote the novel that this film was based on, died yesterday.
Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
We'll see what A24 does it with. I'm certainly interested.dws1982 wrote
Sounds like it will be a prize contender at Cannes, but sounds like it could also be too non-mainstream to be a big awards contender when it's released in the US.
Owen Gleiberman is a fan and he cited Under the Skin on his list of the most overrated films of the decade.
"How's the despair?"
Re: The Zone of Interest reviews
Sounds like it will be a prize contender at Cannes, but sounds like it could also be too non-mainstream to be a big awards contender when it's released in the US.
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Mister Tee
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The Zone of Interest reviews
It can be tough deciding which Cannes debuts rate individual threads. This Jonathan Glazer effort appears to be getting strong response, at least from the trades.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235496467/
https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/t ... 235618691/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235496467/
https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/t ... 235618691/