Zone of Interest

[Amor de Cosmos]

Has there been any discussion of this on here? Perhaps I missed it?

It is by some distance the most important film I've seen this century, and also probably the "best"... whatever that might mean. It appears Jonathan Glazer's Academy Award remarks have gained more attention than his movie which, while significant, is a great pity. It is a magnificent piece of work. Not just because it's more relevant today than the period it portrays, but because it's a cinematic masterpiece. The direction is superb. The fact that there are no close ups, the cinematography is as distanced as the characters are to the horror over their garden wall. And they are so ordinary, so bland, except the dog... the dog is wonderful. The only creature in the entire film with a personality, even though he/she is not a person. I will watch this film again, and again as long as I have breath to breathe.

[San Bernardhinault]

There were a number of choices I disagreed with immediately after watching it. But it’s the film I’ve thought by far the most about that I’ve seen this year. Which suggests that it’s much better than my immediate impression suggested. As mentioned on one of the other threads (Oscars or Cinema or Current Watching) it felt, in some ways, more like an art installation than a standard piece of movie making.

And I think everyone agrees that the sound work is utterly exceptional and makes the whole thing.

I hadn’t realized the lack of close ups until you mentioned it.

[Amor de Cosmos]

And I think everyone agrees that the sound work is utterly exceptional and makes the whole thing.

It was remarkable. As was the B&W/neg/polarised footage of the young woman trying to do something to memoralize/record what was happening. No film I've seen illustrates the banality of evil like this one.

[Nefertiti2]

It was remarkable. As was the B&W/neg/polarised footage of the young woman trying to do something to memoralize/record what was happening. No film I've seen illustrates the banality of evil like this one.

jt's a modified thermal camera. and she's leaving apples so they might survive

more here

[Satchmo Distel]

I've not yet seen it but know of the book, and it's notably very different from Glazer's treatment (the book satirizes the banal mental lives of these vile people but the film apparently avoids exploring their mental lives except by inviting us to infer those mentalities from their actions).

When Joyce Carol Oates reviewed the book, she noted that, contrary to revealing the Holocaust to be uniquely barbaric and sociopathic, it reveals a truth about all genocides or attempted genocides or indeed carceral murderous states, which is that it's worryingly not difficult to find volunteers to operate these policies. I think what Glazer has done (based on AdC's OP) is brilliantly shown how societies can distance people from the evil they perpetrate and how this then makes it far more likely that the evil will be repeated.

[Aitch]

I agree with everything you say, apart form the conclusion. The distance to the characters and their lives was so great and cold that I had no emotional response to the film.

[ad hoc]

The timing of the release with Gaza is opportune.

I know what you mean but this phrasing is...unfortunate

[San Bernardhinault]

My mum went to see it a couple of days ago with two friends - one of whose grandparents was killed in Sobibor (he felt he maybe shouldn’t have been to see it - and she is still in some shock about how powerful it was.

But interestingly she’s another person who didn’t fully know the story of the girl leaving the apples - she thought the apples were being left for Polish workers at the camp. It’s an essential counterpoint in the film, but it’s also something you either need to read in advance or afterwards to know what’s going on. It’s not clear if you’re watching the film standalone. I feel Glazer ought to have made it clearer, although I don’t know how he would have done that without ruining the feel of the movie elsewhere.

[Johnny Velvet]

The fact that there are no close ups, the cinematography is as distanced as the characters are to the horror over their garden wall.

Glazer apparently filmed the entire thing on hidden cameras. A brilliant creative decision.

[Satchmo Distel]

I know what you mean but this phrasing is...unfortunate

I have deleted that sentence, which was off-topic. I had rushed the post.

[San Bernardhinault]

Glazer apparently filmed the entire thing on hidden cameras. A brilliant creative decision.

The fact that there’s only a single moving camera scene - with a constant distance dolly moving at the exact speed of the subject - in the entire film works incredibly well. The more I learn and read about it, the better it gets. The stuff in Nef’s article about the photogrammetry of the site, of deliberately using smaller trees, of using the walls as shiny new things, stuff I hadn’t actively thought about, all add to how impressed I am.

[Nefertiti2]

A stupendous piece by Naomi Klein

[Nefertiti2]

This new york Times video essay with commentary by Jonathan Glazer is also really good

[Amor de Cosmos]

Glazer apparently filmed the entire thing on hidden cameras. A brilliant creative decision.

I didn't realise that. Remarkable.

[Amor de Cosmos]

But interestingly she’s another person who didn’t fully know the story of the girl leaving the apples - she thought the apples were being left for Polish workers at the camp. It’s an essential counterpoint in the film, but it’s also something you either need to read in advance or afterwards to know what’s going on. It’s not clear if you’re watching the film standalone. I feel Glazer ought to have made it clearer, although I don’t know how he would have done that without ruining the feel of the movie elsewhere.

I read it as an inversion of good and evil. Our cultures portray 'good' as being bright, sunny, warm, colourful. 'Evil, 'OTOH, exists in darkness, dirt, gloom and solitude. All too often, in reality, those expectations are quite the reverse.

[Come along, Min]

Looking forward to this, looks like it's a pretty high brand new entry in the top 100 holocaust movies.

[Nefertiti2]

Looking forward to this, looks like it's a pretty high brand new entry in the top 100 holocaust movies.

What does that mean exactly? a "high Brand entry" Either you are a person with execrable taste or you're pulling your racist shit again. Maybe both of course

[ad hoc]

Ignore him

[Come along, Min]

Some people say there's too many of them.

I say that's one way of looking at it, another way of looking at it is - people like them, let's make some more of them

[Tony C]

A stupendous piece by Naomi Klein

That is a wonderful piece from a very impressive writer.

[Felicity, I guess so]

I saw that they were apples, even in negative. There is later shouting from over the wall (or up the riverbank?) about prisoners fighting over them

[Nefertiti2]

a number of second raters attack Glazer

[imp]

What an astonishing piece of work this is. It's 10 days since we saw it and I've hardly stopped thinking about it since.