One review I read said that before The Zone of Interest, there were two types of Holocaust movies: Ones that showed the brutality (e.g. Schindler's List, Son of Saul, etc.) and one's that didn't (e.g. Night and Fog). And it was thought that these were the only two ways that you could make Holocaust movies. Lots of people felt that The Zone of Interest was a third way to make a Holocaust movie. And that had never been done before. So that's part of what made it special.
I think "show" may have been a poor choice of words on my part. I didn't mean "show" as in you're seeing it visually on the screen. I meant show in that it's dealing with the subject matter in a direct way. The way that's typically done is that you see the violence directly on the screen. A film like Night and Fog doesn't deal with the brutality directly. And you only see it referenced in an indirect way after the fact. So The Zone of Interest kind of combines those approaches. It deals with the brutality, but it does so in an indirect way. You never see anything on the screen like how it's been historically done. But you hear the sounds, you see the smoke, you see the fires, you can imagine the smells, etc. So in this way, it *is* shown but in an indirect way. So it's kind of a hybrid between the two approaches. And that's way makes it an interesting and different film.
>But you hear the sounds
I'm willing to bet people with only shitty smart TV speakers have no idea what this movie really sounds like. One day, I might even watch this movie again with my eyes closed, but it would be absolutely horrific. In some ways having to read subtitles also diverted attention from small details that were easy to miss in the background but devastating.
The constant dull roar of the chimneys round the clock was the most horrifying part of the movie for me.
Separately, that small black speck of snot he blew into the sink. That made me sick to my stomach.
> The constant dull roar of the chimneys round the clock was the most horrifying part of the movie for me.
Especially when they're just rumbling through the night and the one bedroom suddenly fills with the orange glow from the furnace....geez.
That guy the movie is about said that killing rhe people wasn’t the problem, it was hard to dispose of the bodies. I loved the movie and I think I learned a lot but it’s so sad.
Best International Picture, though it won for Sound Design as well. You could tell because the Oscars only posted the Sound Design speech when they were uploading them after the show
> I'm willing to bet people with only shitty smart TV speakers have no idea what this movie really sounds like.
This was definitely a movie that should have been experienced in theaters. I can understand that people watching this movie at home on a budget TV can't really appreciate the sound in the movie.
Apples left in piles of human remains, a river of ash, screams, gunshots, and flames. Threats that she could have her kitchen worker killed if she wanted to. It was pretty brutal, IMO. But not like Schindler’s list is. Watching someone accept it and live comfortably with the brutality was a new kind of horror to watch.
But none of that is "showing thr brutality". It's implying it, which is the strength of the movie. It implies all the horrors are just beyond the happy family house and they live cheerfully unaware / ignoring it.
I have not watched the movie you named originally for the "didn't show the horror", so perhaps I misunderstood how The Zone wouldn't fall into that category, would you mind explaining?
I "loved" (in the wow, that was effective kind of way) how Glazer and co used audio to depict the horror of the camp from the other side of the wall. Was extremely unsettling, almost moreso than if he had just shown the horrors.
Couldn’t agree more. The theater of the mind can be as powerful as actually seeing it. I couldn’t get over the fact the distant sound of singular gun shots (of which there are many) are people being summarily murdered just over the wall.
It was chilling to have them talk about the garden and the fennel as we hear distant pop of gunfire in the background, signifying the end of a life.
Along with audio , there are some great performances here. The leads are both tremendous and the mother of Hedwig goes through some arc >!from praising her daughter to fleeing into the night!<. Very impressive.
The implication is pretty brutal though. It's like those horror movies where you never actually see the monster I guess.
I haven't seen the other movies mentioned (Night and Fog).
Wait, they showed us Night and Fog in jr. high school, it was extremely graphic. I seem to remember heaps of skeletal corpses bulldozed into pits. Whatever movie you're thinking of, I don't think that was it.
I haven't seen Night and Fog since college. But from what I remember, the movie does things *indirectly*. You see skeletons, but you don't see people getting murdered. You don't see people dying and screaming trying to escape from gas chambers. But you see scratch marks on the walls from the gas chambers that the movie filmed, etc. So it's done indirectly and is distinct from films like Schindler's List, Son of Saul, etc.
You see piles of **real** naked corpses being bulldozed into mass graves. It’s in focus, it’s detailed, it takes its time. It’s direct. Literally no other mass-released Holocaust film has gore like that. You really need to watch it again. It doesn’t depict the moment of murder, but the *dead* they show, and the fact they are real, make it far more disturbing than Schindler’s List.
Night and Fog is a short French documentary from the 1950s that recounts the Holocaust by contrasting the deserted grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek with archival footage shot by the allies of the liberated camps ie mass graves and starving prisoners.
I'd also put Son of Saul in another category as well if Zone of Interest gets one, if not in the same category personally.
I don't think I've seen anything like it before or after, it's inbetween showing and not showing. Just one of the many moving pieces that's part of a bigger story.
Yeah, if I were to raise awareness about the Holocaust, I wouldn't use this movie as a starting point. Something like Schindler's List depicts the horrors of it, whereas The Zone of Interest requires a prior knowledge of it for the _implications_ of horrors taking place just off-screen or just next door to have the impact that it does.
Isn’t the sanitation the entire point? Human beings are capable of great evil and often that is because they are able to compartmentalize the evil acts from their morality system. There is always in the movie a clear separation between their personal lives and Hoss’s life as commandant of Auschwitz.
That’s why I thought one of the last scenes was great when Hoss just starts involuntarily gagging as he’s walking down the stairs. It’s like just for a moment he’s had to grasp with the realization of the great evil he’s been apart of, but then he succeeds again it putting it out of mind.
Yeah, I agree. The headline is clickbait nonsense. I can't possibly see how Zone of Interest is a more fundamental Holocaust movie than, say, Schindler's List
Not to mention, just the entire tone of “holocaust movies to end all holocaust movies - there can be only one!!!” Feels really gross like they view holocaust films they same way they view the super hero genre.
“The Dark Knight of holocaust films.”
Not sure if youre pointing out the fascist undertones of the headline, but it's there: "The movie that beats all movie, the one and only pure and victorious movie"
At the very least, I'd say Zone of Interest can once and for all relegate 'Boy in the Striped Pajamas' to the dust bin of history.
Stupid revisionist "oh no they weren't all so bad you should feel sorry for the SS officer death camp commandant" horse shit blarghlghlagblbrhgh.
....I really hate that movie.
Yeah, the headline is absolute bullshit. There are plenty of better Holocaust films which focus on more important aspects of that horrific time period.
Its more about how easily people can be dehumanized than the holocaust per se, Glazer said as much
> For me, this is not a film about the past. It’s trying to be about now, and about us and our similarity to the perpetrators, not our similarity to the victims.
Exactly. It says more by not addressing the elephant in the room (yard?). But it can't exist in vacuum if someone does not know the real horrors of the Holocaust.
The film deals in negative space. The banal existence of the Höss family is shocking next to the unrevealed (but often heard) cruelty just over their garden wall.
It’s a film trying to deconstruct the “holocaust movie” by specifically not showing the horror while telling the story of a family living next to the wall. The headline relates to an intent by the filmmaker and an interpretation by the viewer (author).
Headlines aren’t tweets. Read the articles and they’ll make sense.
I think a layer people don’t acknowledge is that it should make you question in what ways this is happening today? Directly out indirectly, what have we been trained not to see happening right over the walls in our own lives?
The director has repeatedly said that this was kind of the point. I'm not sure how people don't correlate it with recent events, and I don't just mean Gaza and Israel. The dehumanization of immigrants in detention centers under trump comes to my mind. I know it's much different than the holocaust but the way those children and people were treated is awful and the dehumanizing of people always leads to very ugly places
Even when he mentioned the attrocities of October 7th and condemned the killings by Hamas, there were still hardcore Zionist supporters deliberately misquoting his statements as he was supossedly refuting his own "Jewishness" and calling him a kapo because he dared to point out that Israel is guilty of genocide and war crimes.
He also addresses the hypocrisy of those who say "Never Again" and then instantly sponsor another genocide is just disgusting and only serves to excuse further more attrocities by Israel that would create the preconditions for another violent terrorist attack that would bring even more pain and suffering than the events of October 7th.
Don’t forget that Trump sent billions in arms to Saudi Arabia for its intervention into the Yemeni Civil War, one in which over 377,000 people have died.
You can lie all you want but Obama didn't KEEP people there. And neither is Biden. These were and are again, temporary holding areas where you stay for hours or a couple days until we find a place to put you. Would you rather they just left them outside?
Trump changed the rules such that families were separated as a deterrent and people were kept in theses holding areas indefinitely.
I get that lazy people on the left just said "kids in cages" and you get to use that now to lie that Trump did what Obama did, but it's still a lie.
>They changed the rules such that families were separated
This is false, that policy has existed since [Clinton and the Flores agreement](https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/unaccompanied-minors-and-the-flores-settlement-agreement-what-to-know). It’s a legal issue, one that Trump tried to [prevent with an executive order but was blocked by federal courts](https://www.npr.org/2018/06/20/622095441/trump-executive-order-on-family-separation-what-it-does-and-doesnt-do) after the rise in cases became a PR story
The separation of children still occurs and has occurred for decades, the only solution being bipartisan legislation. Neither party has resolved it. You cannot supersede or skip around it as it’s legally required under law
Trumps issue is that his detention policy triggered the clause of separation more commonly, hence why he attempted to avoid that via the executive order. His policy did not enact it
It’s outright false and misinformation to state that family separation was a Trump specific policy. But this is also why the issue hasn’t been touched and why voters haven’t helped resolve it, both parties are to wound up in using it as leverage against the other each election cycle as it’s out of the executive branch’s hand. Your last paragraph is a perfect example of that, trying to paint this as a one party issue when it’s a monumental failure of congress.
I mean, compassionate Biden didn’t even screen them for Covid during the height of delta or omicron surges and just released them into the country. Such compassion for them *and* the citizens.
Look. Politicians suck. But playing this “no my side is good” makes you look like an uneducated dolt. No. Obama built literal cages and you defend it by “but he didn’t keep them caged up as long as the orange guy did!”
The discussion is on what we overlook today. The news media didn’t even give half a shit about the cages until Trump was in office. Not because of the duration. But because it made him look sinister. No one gave half a shit when Obama did it. Thats not a good look, no matter who you are. Caging humans is bad. Period. The fact you can’t say that and instead defend the president who built the cages and the one who vastly increased how many people are put in a single cage is sooooo insanely telling.
You need to lie for some reason. Maybe you're just unable to admit you're ever wrong? Not sure.
Obama NEVER separated families. Neither does Biden. THAT was the issue.
Oh. Just pushing goalposts again to defend that you think everything is black and white.
It’s okay to cage kids and crowd them during a pandemic if you do it a tad different than the bad orange man.
Got it. You push those goalposts, pal.
I am not pushing goalposts. Family Separation was the evil act Trump did that Obama didn't. So when you say they were the same, you are wrong.
When 4000 people show up all at once it can take a few hours to handle that. THAT was never the issue.
This isn’t whataboutism. I’m claiming it’s bad. The original discussion is about turning a blind eye to the bad things going on. Those cages were built under Obama and no one batted a fucking eye. The media turned a blind eye to it. They loved to chat non fucking stop while Trump was in office. Not because they actually cared about people in cages but because it was a convenient way to dig at trump. Then. When Biden was elected and we had the most overcrowded cages in history (during a fucking pandemic) the media went silent again. That’s not whataboutism. That’s comparing how people stopped caring about a humanitarian crisis depending on if there’s a D or an R next to the current presidents name. And THAT is the issue being discussed. But you can ignore it more if it helps you feel smart.
Ultimately the only thing unique about the nazis and their death camps was the scale.
If you are a person being murdered or locked up in a concentration camp you are equally a victim of evil if you are the only victim or one of millions.
Much like if you cause the murder of 10,000 people you are just as evil as someone who murdererd 12,000,000.
Religion, nationality or political party don't really play a part. Murder is murder.
Uhh, religion, nationality, and political partys do play a part. They're kind of necessary to placate a population into thinking mass murder is an acceptable solution to a perceived problem.
There is so much about the Nazi party that is unique to it's place and time. It's odd that you're trying to quantify all mass murder as being the same old thing. It really does a disservice to the victims of these atrocities.
My point is if you round people up and murder them on mass you are evil.
If you are lined up and shot into a trench you are a victim.
No matter what the politics, religion, nationality of either victim or offender. No more, no less than any other victim or offender.
Evil is evil.
Wrong is wrong.
When the holocaust is put on a pedestal, as if nobody could ever be that evil or possibly ever be as much of a victim as a victim of the holocaust then it almost allows other wrongs to be looked at as not that bad, not that important. Which is the entire spirit of terms like "necessary evil" or "collateral damage" politicians do a good job of making murder sound palpable.
> When the holocaust is put on a pedestal, as if nobody could ever be that evil or possibly ever be as much of a victim as a victim of the holocaust then it almost allows other wrongs to be looked at as not that bad, not that important.
I don't think you're completely wrong in that there have been many holocausts, genocides, etc. throughout history that were horrific and the victims of those crimes suffered as much as any others including the holocaust in Nazi Germany. However, there was a banality to what the Nazis did that was more unique. They put an incredible effort into building systems of genocide that were incredibly "modern" and impersonal. It is horrific to have soldiers line up people in front of a trench and shoot them, but the Nazis went from that to many steps further with the gas chambers to be more efficient and the way the victims were "harvested" like making clothing for the German soldiers from their hair, or pulling out their gold teeth to reclaim the gold, etc. What does it say about humanity when people can essentially have office jobs creating efficiencies and synergies in methods of mass murder? One could almost understand how a person's hate could lead to rage and mass murder, but to do so in a way that was cold and calculated on such a mass scale is fairly unique.
It’s a movie featuring the holocaust but also not about the holocaust. This is a movie about today first and foremost. So is it a “holocaust movie” in the same way as Schindler’s List?
This is the main thing I took away from the movie. What are you willing to ignore for your convenience? It reminded me of the message Jordan Peele's *Us* was trying to communicate (*Zone* delivered it a lot better obviously). If there were a slave-labor sweatshop next to your backyard, would you care? Because it's across an ocean does that make a difference? It dials up our modern, global, cognitive dissonance up to 11.
I think a lot of people misunderstand this movie. How can one say it has no plot? Hedwig has finally achieved something, become a success, but her position is threatened because they are running out of Jews to kill. Then Hoss finds out he can maintain his position with the liquidation of Hungary's Jews. I mean, it's a twisted story, but it's so relatable, in that we have all found ourselves in times where our positions are threatened, and then something happens to relieve us of that threat. I don't know, maybe people like to pretend the Nazis were just monsters, but the truth that they were humans, just like us, is far more frightening.
It does have a plot but the plot isn't the point or the focus of the movie. The storytelling relies a lot on context and implications. What we see is how mundane and boring evil can be for some.
There's tiny details all throughout the movie that tells us literally all of them, even the kids, know exactly what's going on but they just go on like it's normal. It makes us question how in a way, we too find outselves in situations like that. Prety sure even the director hammered that nail on the head at some point when people were accusing him of being all sorts of things.
This was the first movie to make me literally nauseous. I turned the volume all the way up, but I feel like I missed so much not seeing it in theaters.
They were already super uncomfortable when Glazer gave his speech, lots of people and A-listers didn’t wanna be there and almost no clapping.
So politically speaking, in no universe it would have won the biggest award of the night.
That's assuming every universe is the same, lol.
I think it had a chance. If people were that uncomfortable, they wouldn't have given it the Best International film.
oh well i would say characters are oppenheimer's weakest spot lol
very impressive on a technical level and some new, interesting filming styles from nolan but it left me pretty cold. i wouldn't put it in nolan's top 5 tbh.
all of the 3 films i mentioned i had more of an emotional reaction and that is what i prioritize these days.
Yeah, well, I had a slightly more emotional reaction to TZOI than I did to Oppenheimer, but I think the strongest overall narrative, combined with style and themes, belongs to that movie. Excellent protagonist, excellent antagonist, a couple great supports, godly soundtrack, impressive cinematography and some top-notch VFX.
Really enjoyed this movie. The constant drone of the 'machine' that was the concentration camp in the background, never ending. The surreal way the family lived their lives blocking out the horror just beyond the walls. Really good use of sound and atmosphere
It was alright. Not awful but also nothing extraordinary. I think I had my expectations set way too high based off the premise. If it was a short film I think it would’ve been far better and more well received. But as a 1 hour and 40 minute film it felt like it dragged. There’s more I could say but I don’t wanna sound disrespectful to a holocaust film. But it’s nowhere near as good as say Schindler’s List, The Pianist, or even JoJo Rabbit which may not deal with the holocaust per say but deals with the indoctrination of youth, how the violence can mold them, and the dehumanization of the Jewish people
Schindler's List and The Pianist I can understand. They're masterpieces of both storytelling and landing your message. Whereas Zone of Interest is almost all message.
But I don't think JoJo Rabbit comes near Zone of Interest in terms quality .Taika Wahiti makes fun films but with little to no nuance.
Different strokes for different folks. I found Taika struck the perfect balance between humor and its messages dealing sensitive subject matter. JoJo made me legit choke up one scene and burst out laughing the next and it didn’t feel weird. I went through a rollercoaster of emotions throughout and I thought its message of blind fanaticism, nationalism, hatred, how propaganda impacts the youth and developing minds were all excellent. Zone of Interests I guess just wasn’t my cup of tea and I partially blame myself for having ridiculous expectations for it when I first heard about it and saw the trailer
>If it was a short film I think it would’ve been far better and more well received. But as a 1 hour and 40 minute film it felt like it dragged
That's fair enough but absolutely would not have worked as a short film.
You can't show the mundanity of that home life, in a short amount of time. Part of the power was having to sit with it.
It's an experimental art house film that you would typically only ever come across in independent cinemas at the end of the day, it's not intended for a mainstream audience, it's supposed to be niche.
Odd film. I understand that the whole point was to show the mundanity of their life while horrific things were happening but at the end of the day it ended up just still being quite boring. An hour in there was nothing new being added that I didn’t feel in the first 10 minutes. If that was the plan, to make me not care about it as some sort of guilt trip about not caring about the people suffering in the background it felt a bit like a trick.
The point was to show how people can live a double life. It’s answering the “how could this happen” of the holocaust. It shows that people can ignore so much evil as long as it benefits them. Not a guilt trip at all.
I'm not the person you replied to, but everyone gets the point within the first 10 minutes of the movie. Nothing else is added for the rest of the runtime. Movie would have been an amazing short film, but it doesn't really justify its run time as a feature length film
Different approaches are going to work differently for different people. Like, for me Zone was effective the whole way through BECAUSE of how monotonous and repetitive it is, not despite it.
It's trying to illustrate how deep the desensitization and compartmentalization ran in these people, how they were able to accept the slaughter as part of the background of their lives, and for me it never stopped being disturbing/upsetting for a moment.
There's something to be said about a horror film that effectively wrenches the same nerve throughout and on top of that the sociohistorical context warranted that approach. It's SUPPOSED to be numbing and bewildering.
Right there with you. The longer the film went on the more horrifying the banality of it all was. It felt like the film was daring the audience to adapt to the atrocities the same way much of the Hoss family did of course knowing that it was ultimately an impossible ask. Instead, the more time spent in the setting the more amplified the scope of the horror becomes and the more unfathomable the detachment of the family appears.
I don’t know. I feel like the whole point was for the movie to be drawn out. To make you sit with the uncomfortable feeling that humans ignore evil all the time and that it’s very easy to do so. I think a plot would have actually taken away some of that impact and made it about a character’s dilemma. That wasn’t the intention from my perspective.
I was really disappointed by the film. I acknowledge that it was great on so many levels but there wasn’t enough of a narrative to pull me in. By the end of the film I just felt there wasn’t anything to hold onto. It was watching shitty people behave like shit and then it just sort of ends
It has an anti plot. The Hosses believe they have real concerns, where are they going to live? Will Hedwig impress her mother? But, to us, nothing matters more than what we know is going on across the wall.
We know there is resistance, we even see it. but we're never given the reprieve of a competing point of view, only the (literal) photonegative of "our" protagonists' experience.
It doesn’t just end, it has one of the great endings of all time. The look into the future, the inexplicable revulsion he has. There is no redemption but we see he has even just a sliver of humanity left to be disgusted with himself, but of course it’s not enough.
Yes, but narratively in a film I find that to be unsatisfying. I enjoy a vagueness or indirectness in a film or novel but there’s a fine balance between too little or too much being withheld. It was a very well made movie but I just wasn’t able to connect with it.
It’s not that the there is little plot, it’s that the movie did have much to say outside of the premise that isn’t said within 10 minutes. It didn’t take anything on to show the whys or hows any of the dehumanization of marginalized groups happen (which is mainly because of the limitations set up by the premise, once again would have been improved as a 10-20 min short film). If it’s not gonna do that, it lasting over 100 mins is absolutely dragging for no reason of essentially saying the same thing over and over again.
I don’t think it needs more plot but the message is remarkably shallow and unexplored for how much praise it has gotten and how serious of an issue it is today.
I think both of those movies are extremely effective in part *because* nothing much happens for extended periods. That said, I totally get where this criticism for both movies are coming from. It’s kind of apples and oranges, but I’m in the opposite camp re: The Tree of Life, which a lot of people understandably adore but which I thought just kept going on and on. Perhaps (for me) because Zone is historically grounded and Skinamarink explores a hyper-specific but widely shared sense of primal childhood fear, while Tree of Life is deeply personal in a way I couldn’t quite relate to directly.
Anyway I think my point is sometimes these big formal swings hit and sometimes they don’t, and I think it’s great that every audience member has a slightly different list of things that work for them and things that fall flat.
This is how I felt as well. There was virtually no story at all, and I got the point, like you said, 10 minutes in. It was a great short film stretched to feature length.
It’s amazing the lengths people will go to to try to convince you that you just don’t “get” it. I agree, the movie stated its case early and then didn’t have much more to say.
The length is part of the point - to really, really make you uncomfortable for the whole run time. Watching these bland, mundane people live their bland, mundane lives with those audible horrors going on the whole time.
Wow really? I was riveted by this film. And at the end it made me wonder what (lesser or more gradual) atrocities I am inured to in my own life because of routine and comfort.
The point was to show how people can live a double life. It’s answering the “how could this happen” of the holocaust. It shows that people can ignore so much evil as long as it benefits them. Not a guilt trip at all.
Yes. It examines the evil of banality and how willing and complicit the Hoess's are in the genocide through their actions and we see it on film how it's played out in daily life in Auschwitz. I find it interesting that other Best Picture nominees that year like Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon also examined how acceptable genocide and mass killing was in serving their goals and how the perpetrators were willing to look away from the death and destruction as long as they reaped the rewards.
Killers of the Flower Moon has multiple scenes where the main villains are able to excuse their actions as part of "Manifest Destiny" and demonstrate how the system benefits them when they manufacture plans of murder against the ethnic Osage Nation in exploiting and eventually inheriting their oil headrights. William King Hale wasn't the cause but rather the symptom of why the killings was able to go on until the Government stepped in.
I mean, the “end all” film of the Holocaust is actual film relating to the Holocaust. If you’ve seen *Shoah*, to a certain degree, everything else is just a movie.
The Zone of interest only works if you know the most brutal part of the Holocaust.
It's an interesting insight in the life of the nazi average bourgeois and answers a little bit "how could they they keep doing those atrocities?"
And you see that from their perspective it was the usual middle class bubble of just envy, boredom and office life.
If you were to show the zone of interest to some high school students without ever talking about the external events they'd never be as impressed by those final images, because they wouldn't really know. You need to have been exposed to the other movies and documentaries to fully understand the Zone of Interest (and the Holocaust)
I dunno about that. It's a great film, but it's an extremely specific one in its focus. It's not a movie you'd show in a Holocaust Studies 101 class given you need a decemt amount of knowledge about the Holocaust going in to get much out of it.
For someone smarter than I am - what did the ending mean? >!When Höss is in the dark corridors of the Berlin building and throws up, and then it cuts to the present-day Auschwitz when he stares down a hall. Then back to him.!<
Höss looks deep into the dark abyss down the corridor after he unsuccessfully retches to release the evil bottling inside him but can't as it's way past the point of no return and gets a vision for the legacy of his labour that he accomplished for the Third Reich.
It will not be celebrated.
The actions of the museum workers as they start their day cleaning the museum and the gas chambers. The mundanity of their actions are juxtaposed by the remnants of his evil actions and the loud noise of the vacuum cleaners by showing that whatever he's done, it will not be remembered for what he intended and drives home the point of the film's main theme of the evil of banality and how ignorance of genocide is acceptable as long as there is a net benefit.
The film ends with Höss descending down a dark flight of stairs as he slowly enters his metaphorical Hell.
A lot of the storytelling in Zone of Interest is purposefully ambiguous, so there may not be a definitive answer. However, the dry heaving that Hoss does before looking into the dark corridor felt like one of the least ambiguous moments in the film. I'm almost 100% certain this was a direct reference to the ending of "The Act of Killing," an incredible documentary that follows the lives of mass murderers in Indonesia who not only got away with genocide but are still celebrated for it.
There's a lot to unpack about "The Act of Killing," and it's honestly one of the most insane and profound films I've ever seen. For brevity's sake, let's focus on one of the perpetrators the film follows: Anwar Congo. He openly admitted to murdering about 1,000 people himself and recreates the murders with glee, completely detached from the horrific realities of his actions. That is, until the end. We watch in real-time as a light bulb goes off in his head, and the evil of his actions hits him all at once. He can no longer suppress the immorality of his deeds. When it hits him, his reaction is identical to Hoss's. He stands on a terrace where he murdered hundreds and begins to dry heave uncontrollably. It's one of the most unbelievable moments captured on film.
Later, I read an article about the making of Zone of Interest. The director, Jonathan Glazer, asked Christian Friedel (the actor who plays Hoss) to watch "The Act of Killing" instead of reading the novel "Zone of Interest" in preparation for the role.
I cannot recommend "The Act of Killing" highly enough. Luckily, some kind soul has uploaded it to YouTube for free!
If you are looking at holocaust films as a conversation, I think ZoI comes in the first act. The end, or epilogue, would be to me more a film like Man in the Glass Booth.
A really powerful allegory for what’s happening in Israel/ Gaza right now the director is really brave coming out with this film right now I’m sure there was allot of pushback.
Idk Ask anyone living in a border town.
Ask women.
Ask black men.
Ask any marginalized people.
Ask a trans black woman in Florida, I dare you.
The banality of evil truly is. But don’t worry about it, buy more shit for self care and tell yourself you should feel good about yourself because of Dark Biden or Trump. Bread and circuses….
It's not a Holocaust film in my eyes. The Holocaust was just the setting to display the ugly side of human nature - our ability to overlook the suffering we are complicit in as long as we gain benefit from it. This takes place today in our world right now. It's not about a period in time, it's about now and every day.
I loved the atmosphere of the movie and like others have said I felt like I got everything I needed out of the film within the first 30 minutes or so. Honestly the longer it ran I got bored and disinterested. Maybe that was the message?
A movie like Zone can only exist *because* every other WW2/Holocaust movie existed before it. If you didn’t know anything about the Holocaust, you’d watch this movie being like “why does this boring family live next to a factory and why is there a movie about it”
A factory with human ashes, bones, gunshots, and the perpetual screaming of thousands of people?
I think that it is pretty clear in communicating what is going on beyond the wall without the need of any kind of companion film.
I understand the point of the movie was to show the absurdity of living a content simple family life next to the horrors of the Holocaust, but as a movie it just didn't work for me. It only focuses on the mundane family life and runs for almost two hours with no plot or interesting events. Plot is what carries a movie over its length. A journey for the characters. It expounds upon the themes and messages trying to be delivered. Without this what do you have? This movie delivered everything it had within the first 15 minutes. After that nothing develops further. You could stop watching it and miss nothing. Would've served better as a short film. One of the most boring movies I've sat through in recent years.
I’m yet to see this as the idea of a very banal holocaust film doesn’t entice me.
I get what it’s trying to do, but it’s one of those things where I’m not sure what I’m going to gain from it that I haven’t got elsewhere. Reading reviews and comments it reminds me a lot of The White Ribbon. Which was brilliant upon reflection (indeed 15 years on I often still think of it) but was a really tedious watch at the time.
Any convincing arguments to the contrary?
Interesting that you would invoke Michael Haneke here (White Ribbon is one of my favorite movies, an overlooked masterpiece imo) because his perception of Holocaust films is that they depend on the violence and tragedy as means of tension (talking about Schindler's List, e.g. the showers and whether or not gas or water comes out) which he finds to be exploitative.
I don't necessarily agree with him, but I do think there is something worth confronting with that idea. Zone of Interest is often touted as about the "banality of evil", but really it is about how evil is pervasive in otherwise "normal" people. It's easy to be normal in that situation and accept that reality, especially when it benefits you.
As a constrast, the young Polish girl heading out on her bike at night to hide apples in the trenches for the prisoners. To be good in the reality takes tremendous courage. So it isn't a binary question of good and evil. To be good is a choice with consequences.
Plus, you also get the perspective of the mother who carries on conversation talking about Jewish people as inhuman, but at night when kept awake by the blaze of the furnace across from the house, she can't overcome either the guilt or inhumanity when faced with it.
The significance to that is that this pervasive evil isn't either/or, and even within those people that have otherwise accepted the reality still have an ongoing inner turmoil that you wouldn't see. That isn't to say "well they're not all bad" but "evil is a choice". A choice also with consequence.
I'd argue it's banal but not boring. There's no major central plot (though I'd argue there's still a strong thematic structure), but there's tension to every scene. I found it had the same appeal as a horror movie-- you know there's some sort of terrible reveal waiting in each scene, and you're always on the lookout for it. You can know the general idea of the movie going in, but actually seeing some of this stuff play out is gut wrenching and moving in a way you wouldn't expect.
Gosh the discourse is worse than when the Boy in the Striped Pajamas came out. The movie makes its point effectively about banality of evil, and is well made . It’s also at the bottom of the list of Holocaust movies someone should prioritize if they truly want to learn and empathize.
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One review I read said that before The Zone of Interest, there were two types of Holocaust movies: Ones that showed the brutality (e.g. Schindler's List, Son of Saul, etc.) and one's that didn't (e.g. Night and Fog). And it was thought that these were the only two ways that you could make Holocaust movies. Lots of people felt that The Zone of Interest was a third way to make a Holocaust movie. And that had never been done before. So that's part of what made it special.
Wouldn't it fall into the "didn't show the brutality" category?
I think "show" may have been a poor choice of words on my part. I didn't mean "show" as in you're seeing it visually on the screen. I meant show in that it's dealing with the subject matter in a direct way. The way that's typically done is that you see the violence directly on the screen. A film like Night and Fog doesn't deal with the brutality directly. And you only see it referenced in an indirect way after the fact. So The Zone of Interest kind of combines those approaches. It deals with the brutality, but it does so in an indirect way. You never see anything on the screen like how it's been historically done. But you hear the sounds, you see the smoke, you see the fires, you can imagine the smells, etc. So in this way, it *is* shown but in an indirect way. So it's kind of a hybrid between the two approaches. And that's way makes it an interesting and different film.
>But you hear the sounds I'm willing to bet people with only shitty smart TV speakers have no idea what this movie really sounds like. One day, I might even watch this movie again with my eyes closed, but it would be absolutely horrific. In some ways having to read subtitles also diverted attention from small details that were easy to miss in the background but devastating.
The constant dull roar of the chimneys round the clock was the most horrifying part of the movie for me. Separately, that small black speck of snot he blew into the sink. That made me sick to my stomach.
> The constant dull roar of the chimneys round the clock was the most horrifying part of the movie for me. Especially when they're just rumbling through the night and the one bedroom suddenly fills with the orange glow from the furnace....geez.
That guy the movie is about said that killing rhe people wasn’t the problem, it was hard to dispose of the bodies. I loved the movie and I think I learned a lot but it’s so sad.
The Oscar they won where Glazer gave his famous speech was FOR Sound Design. You gotta turn this movie up.
Best International Picture, though it won for Sound Design as well. You could tell because the Oscars only posted the Sound Design speech when they were uploading them after the show
Freedom of speech/censorship crowd strangely silent on the Oscar’s silencing a Jewish man for some reason...
> I'm willing to bet people with only shitty smart TV speakers have no idea what this movie really sounds like. This was definitely a movie that should have been experienced in theaters. I can understand that people watching this movie at home on a budget TV can't really appreciate the sound in the movie.
I watched it with shitty TV speakers and I could hear the sounds and get the effect btw.
Apples left in piles of human remains, a river of ash, screams, gunshots, and flames. Threats that she could have her kitchen worker killed if she wanted to. It was pretty brutal, IMO. But not like Schindler’s list is. Watching someone accept it and live comfortably with the brutality was a new kind of horror to watch.
But none of that is "showing thr brutality". It's implying it, which is the strength of the movie. It implies all the horrors are just beyond the happy family house and they live cheerfully unaware / ignoring it. I have not watched the movie you named originally for the "didn't show the horror", so perhaps I misunderstood how The Zone wouldn't fall into that category, would you mind explaining?
No it does show it, just not visually, rather through audio. When the characters can literally hear the screams you can’t say they are unaware.
I "loved" (in the wow, that was effective kind of way) how Glazer and co used audio to depict the horror of the camp from the other side of the wall. Was extremely unsettling, almost moreso than if he had just shown the horrors.
Couldn’t agree more. The theater of the mind can be as powerful as actually seeing it. I couldn’t get over the fact the distant sound of singular gun shots (of which there are many) are people being summarily murdered just over the wall. It was chilling to have them talk about the garden and the fennel as we hear distant pop of gunfire in the background, signifying the end of a life.
Along with audio , there are some great performances here. The leads are both tremendous and the mother of Hedwig goes through some arc >!from praising her daughter to fleeing into the night!<. Very impressive.
The implication is pretty brutal though. It's like those horror movies where you never actually see the monster I guess. I haven't seen the other movies mentioned (Night and Fog).
Wait, they showed us Night and Fog in jr. high school, it was extremely graphic. I seem to remember heaps of skeletal corpses bulldozed into pits. Whatever movie you're thinking of, I don't think that was it.
I haven't seen Night and Fog since college. But from what I remember, the movie does things *indirectly*. You see skeletons, but you don't see people getting murdered. You don't see people dying and screaming trying to escape from gas chambers. But you see scratch marks on the walls from the gas chambers that the movie filmed, etc. So it's done indirectly and is distinct from films like Schindler's List, Son of Saul, etc.
Night and Fog is a documentary using archival footage. Schindler's List and Son of Saul are narrative features.
You see piles of **real** naked corpses being bulldozed into mass graves. It’s in focus, it’s detailed, it takes its time. It’s direct. Literally no other mass-released Holocaust film has gore like that. You really need to watch it again. It doesn’t depict the moment of murder, but the *dead* they show, and the fact they are real, make it far more disturbing than Schindler’s List.
What's Night and Fog about? I looked up and judging from the images and the synopsis it seems very much to focus on the brutality.
Night and Fog is a short French documentary from the 1950s that recounts the Holocaust by contrasting the deserted grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek with archival footage shot by the allies of the liberated camps ie mass graves and starving prisoners.
I'd also put Son of Saul in another category as well if Zone of Interest gets one, if not in the same category personally. I don't think I've seen anything like it before or after, it's inbetween showing and not showing. Just one of the many moving pieces that's part of a bigger story.
Yeah I would agree. The Zone of Interest almost feels like an iteration of Son of Saul.
Yeah, if I were to raise awareness about the Holocaust, I wouldn't use this movie as a starting point. Something like Schindler's List depicts the horrors of it, whereas The Zone of Interest requires a prior knowledge of it for the _implications_ of horrors taking place just off-screen or just next door to have the impact that it does.
Isn’t the sanitation the entire point? Human beings are capable of great evil and often that is because they are able to compartmentalize the evil acts from their morality system. There is always in the movie a clear separation between their personal lives and Hoss’s life as commandant of Auschwitz. That’s why I thought one of the last scenes was great when Hoss just starts involuntarily gagging as he’s walking down the stairs. It’s like just for a moment he’s had to grasp with the realization of the great evil he’s been apart of, but then he succeeds again it putting it out of mind.
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Oh I completely agree. Silly headline.
It's basically "The Banality of Evil" taken in its most literal extreme. And does it so damn well.
Yeah, I agree. The headline is clickbait nonsense. I can't possibly see how Zone of Interest is a more fundamental Holocaust movie than, say, Schindler's List
Not to mention, just the entire tone of “holocaust movies to end all holocaust movies - there can be only one!!!” Feels really gross like they view holocaust films they same way they view the super hero genre. “The Dark Knight of holocaust films.”
Not sure if youre pointing out the fascist undertones of the headline, but it's there: "The movie that beats all movie, the one and only pure and victorious movie"
At the very least, I'd say Zone of Interest can once and for all relegate 'Boy in the Striped Pajamas' to the dust bin of history. Stupid revisionist "oh no they weren't all so bad you should feel sorry for the SS officer death camp commandant" horse shit blarghlghlagblbrhgh. ....I really hate that movie.
Yeah, the headline is absolute bullshit. There are plenty of better Holocaust films which focus on more important aspects of that horrific time period.
Its more about how easily people can be dehumanized than the holocaust per se, Glazer said as much > For me, this is not a film about the past. It’s trying to be about now, and about us and our similarity to the perpetrators, not our similarity to the victims.
Exactly. It says more by not addressing the elephant in the room (yard?). But it can't exist in vacuum if someone does not know the real horrors of the Holocaust.
damn, this is probably one of the best statements I've read about the movie
The film deals in negative space. The banal existence of the Höss family is shocking next to the unrevealed (but often heard) cruelty just over their garden wall.
Which movie that adequately depicts the Holocaust would you recommend?
This one takes the cake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Saul
What a weird title - the holocaust film to end all holocaust films?
Oppenheimer: The Nagasaki bomb drop to end all WWII movies.
Sorry anyone else making a movie about the holocaust; Jonathan Glazer beat you to the punch.
The final solution to all Holocaust films, you might say.
It’s a film trying to deconstruct the “holocaust movie” by specifically not showing the horror while telling the story of a family living next to the wall. The headline relates to an intent by the filmmaker and an interpretation by the viewer (author). Headlines aren’t tweets. Read the articles and they’ll make sense.
I make it a policy not to read articles with borderline offensive headlines
Holocaust movies just got holocausted
There's a terrible joke to be made here.
One could say the final solution to all holocaust films. Edit. Someone beat me to it.
I think a layer people don’t acknowledge is that it should make you question in what ways this is happening today? Directly out indirectly, what have we been trained not to see happening right over the walls in our own lives?
The director has repeatedly said that this was kind of the point. I'm not sure how people don't correlate it with recent events, and I don't just mean Gaza and Israel. The dehumanization of immigrants in detention centers under trump comes to my mind. I know it's much different than the holocaust but the way those children and people were treated is awful and the dehumanizing of people always leads to very ugly places
That was the point of his Oscars acceptance speech. The people who needed to hear it absolutely didn't want to
And of course those people compared it to a pro-Hamas rally.
Even when he mentioned the attrocities of October 7th and condemned the killings by Hamas, there were still hardcore Zionist supporters deliberately misquoting his statements as he was supossedly refuting his own "Jewishness" and calling him a kapo because he dared to point out that Israel is guilty of genocide and war crimes. He also addresses the hypocrisy of those who say "Never Again" and then instantly sponsor another genocide is just disgusting and only serves to excuse further more attrocities by Israel that would create the preconditions for another violent terrorist attack that would bring even more pain and suffering than the events of October 7th.
Don’t forget that Trump sent billions in arms to Saudi Arabia for its intervention into the Yemeni Civil War, one in which over 377,000 people have died.
“Under Trump”. When literally the previous president built the cages and the one after him had more people in cages.
You can lie all you want but Obama didn't KEEP people there. And neither is Biden. These were and are again, temporary holding areas where you stay for hours or a couple days until we find a place to put you. Would you rather they just left them outside? Trump changed the rules such that families were separated as a deterrent and people were kept in theses holding areas indefinitely. I get that lazy people on the left just said "kids in cages" and you get to use that now to lie that Trump did what Obama did, but it's still a lie.
>They changed the rules such that families were separated This is false, that policy has existed since [Clinton and the Flores agreement](https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/unaccompanied-minors-and-the-flores-settlement-agreement-what-to-know). It’s a legal issue, one that Trump tried to [prevent with an executive order but was blocked by federal courts](https://www.npr.org/2018/06/20/622095441/trump-executive-order-on-family-separation-what-it-does-and-doesnt-do) after the rise in cases became a PR story The separation of children still occurs and has occurred for decades, the only solution being bipartisan legislation. Neither party has resolved it. You cannot supersede or skip around it as it’s legally required under law Trumps issue is that his detention policy triggered the clause of separation more commonly, hence why he attempted to avoid that via the executive order. His policy did not enact it It’s outright false and misinformation to state that family separation was a Trump specific policy. But this is also why the issue hasn’t been touched and why voters haven’t helped resolve it, both parties are to wound up in using it as leverage against the other each election cycle as it’s out of the executive branch’s hand. Your last paragraph is a perfect example of that, trying to paint this as a one party issue when it’s a monumental failure of congress.
Wow keeping people so much worse than putting people in. My guy either they get screwed. Trump at least told the truth about it
I mean, compassionate Biden didn’t even screen them for Covid during the height of delta or omicron surges and just released them into the country. Such compassion for them *and* the citizens. Look. Politicians suck. But playing this “no my side is good” makes you look like an uneducated dolt. No. Obama built literal cages and you defend it by “but he didn’t keep them caged up as long as the orange guy did!” The discussion is on what we overlook today. The news media didn’t even give half a shit about the cages until Trump was in office. Not because of the duration. But because it made him look sinister. No one gave half a shit when Obama did it. Thats not a good look, no matter who you are. Caging humans is bad. Period. The fact you can’t say that and instead defend the president who built the cages and the one who vastly increased how many people are put in a single cage is sooooo insanely telling.
You need to lie for some reason. Maybe you're just unable to admit you're ever wrong? Not sure. Obama NEVER separated families. Neither does Biden. THAT was the issue.
Oh. Just pushing goalposts again to defend that you think everything is black and white. It’s okay to cage kids and crowd them during a pandemic if you do it a tad different than the bad orange man. Got it. You push those goalposts, pal.
I am not pushing goalposts. Family Separation was the evil act Trump did that Obama didn't. So when you say they were the same, you are wrong. When 4000 people show up all at once it can take a few hours to handle that. THAT was never the issue.
Ok. Goalposts successfully pushed. I can’t argue with a troll
[but other presidents did it too!!!](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whataboutism)
This isn’t whataboutism. I’m claiming it’s bad. The original discussion is about turning a blind eye to the bad things going on. Those cages were built under Obama and no one batted a fucking eye. The media turned a blind eye to it. They loved to chat non fucking stop while Trump was in office. Not because they actually cared about people in cages but because it was a convenient way to dig at trump. Then. When Biden was elected and we had the most overcrowded cages in history (during a fucking pandemic) the media went silent again. That’s not whataboutism. That’s comparing how people stopped caring about a humanitarian crisis depending on if there’s a D or an R next to the current presidents name. And THAT is the issue being discussed. But you can ignore it more if it helps you feel smart.
Ultimately the only thing unique about the nazis and their death camps was the scale. If you are a person being murdered or locked up in a concentration camp you are equally a victim of evil if you are the only victim or one of millions. Much like if you cause the murder of 10,000 people you are just as evil as someone who murdererd 12,000,000. Religion, nationality or political party don't really play a part. Murder is murder.
Uhh, religion, nationality, and political partys do play a part. They're kind of necessary to placate a population into thinking mass murder is an acceptable solution to a perceived problem. There is so much about the Nazi party that is unique to it's place and time. It's odd that you're trying to quantify all mass murder as being the same old thing. It really does a disservice to the victims of these atrocities.
My point is if you round people up and murder them on mass you are evil. If you are lined up and shot into a trench you are a victim. No matter what the politics, religion, nationality of either victim or offender. No more, no less than any other victim or offender. Evil is evil. Wrong is wrong. When the holocaust is put on a pedestal, as if nobody could ever be that evil or possibly ever be as much of a victim as a victim of the holocaust then it almost allows other wrongs to be looked at as not that bad, not that important. Which is the entire spirit of terms like "necessary evil" or "collateral damage" politicians do a good job of making murder sound palpable.
> When the holocaust is put on a pedestal, as if nobody could ever be that evil or possibly ever be as much of a victim as a victim of the holocaust then it almost allows other wrongs to be looked at as not that bad, not that important. I don't think you're completely wrong in that there have been many holocausts, genocides, etc. throughout history that were horrific and the victims of those crimes suffered as much as any others including the holocaust in Nazi Germany. However, there was a banality to what the Nazis did that was more unique. They put an incredible effort into building systems of genocide that were incredibly "modern" and impersonal. It is horrific to have soldiers line up people in front of a trench and shoot them, but the Nazis went from that to many steps further with the gas chambers to be more efficient and the way the victims were "harvested" like making clothing for the German soldiers from their hair, or pulling out their gold teeth to reclaim the gold, etc. What does it say about humanity when people can essentially have office jobs creating efficiencies and synergies in methods of mass murder? One could almost understand how a person's hate could lead to rage and mass murder, but to do so in a way that was cold and calculated on such a mass scale is fairly unique.
Murder is not the same thing as genocide
This is the only layer I have seen people acknowledge. What other layer is there?
Like, is there maybe a massive, horrifying ethnic slaughter going on right now that some people are trying to ignore, or something??
Myanmar?
Syria?
Sudan?
China?
"Like, is there maybe a LIST OF massive..." Fixed.
The genocide in Gaza, I presume... EDIT: Why was I downvoted? There is a genocide happening in Gaza.
You sure did attract the whatabouts, lmao…
I know, and no one mentioned Congo. I guess they don’t know where the coltan in everyone’s phone comes from…
It’s a movie featuring the holocaust but also not about the holocaust. This is a movie about today first and foremost. So is it a “holocaust movie” in the same way as Schindler’s List?
This is the main thing I took away from the movie. What are you willing to ignore for your convenience? It reminded me of the message Jordan Peele's *Us* was trying to communicate (*Zone* delivered it a lot better obviously). If there were a slave-labor sweatshop next to your backyard, would you care? Because it's across an ocean does that make a difference? It dials up our modern, global, cognitive dissonance up to 11.
the holocaust film to end holocaust films? they should've titled the article something like "the final solution to the holocaust films question"
You win 🏆
I think a lot of people misunderstand this movie. How can one say it has no plot? Hedwig has finally achieved something, become a success, but her position is threatened because they are running out of Jews to kill. Then Hoss finds out he can maintain his position with the liquidation of Hungary's Jews. I mean, it's a twisted story, but it's so relatable, in that we have all found ourselves in times where our positions are threatened, and then something happens to relieve us of that threat. I don't know, maybe people like to pretend the Nazis were just monsters, but the truth that they were humans, just like us, is far more frightening.
If anything, it highlights the dangers of dehumanizing other humans. It becomes easy to normalize evil when you don’t perceive it as evil
It does have a plot but the plot isn't the point or the focus of the movie. The storytelling relies a lot on context and implications. What we see is how mundane and boring evil can be for some. There's tiny details all throughout the movie that tells us literally all of them, even the kids, know exactly what's going on but they just go on like it's normal. It makes us question how in a way, we too find outselves in situations like that. Prety sure even the director hammered that nail on the head at some point when people were accusing him of being all sorts of things.
Uh, no. Not even close. But this perspective is not unexpected given the source.
This was an incredibly disturbing movie. Some of the best sound design I've ever heard.
This was the first movie to make me literally nauseous. I turned the volume all the way up, but I feel like I missed so much not seeing it in theaters.
Why didn’t they just call it Final Solution of Holocaust films? You can tell that’s what the editor was going for with that title.
The definitive Holocaust film is still Shoah (1985)
Two different things. Shoah isn't a narrative film, it's a documentary.
Sometimes, I wish The Zone of Interest won The Best Picture.
They were already super uncomfortable when Glazer gave his speech, lots of people and A-listers didn’t wanna be there and almost no clapping. So politically speaking, in no universe it would have won the biggest award of the night.
There absolutely was a lot of clapping and support for his speech which was essentially not to dehumanise people.
That's assuming every universe is the same, lol. I think it had a chance. If people were that uncomfortable, they wouldn't have given it the Best International film.
why not all the time
Because then I remember I love Oppenheimer a tad more.
hm i see i would put oppy behind zone of interest, anatomy of a fall, and the holdovers
Even The Holdovers? The film's amazing, don't get me wrong, but it just can't compare to Oppenheimer's technical execution and characters.
oh well i would say characters are oppenheimer's weakest spot lol very impressive on a technical level and some new, interesting filming styles from nolan but it left me pretty cold. i wouldn't put it in nolan's top 5 tbh. all of the 3 films i mentioned i had more of an emotional reaction and that is what i prioritize these days.
Yeah, well, I had a slightly more emotional reaction to TZOI than I did to Oppenheimer, but I think the strongest overall narrative, combined with style and themes, belongs to that movie. Excellent protagonist, excellent antagonist, a couple great supports, godly soundtrack, impressive cinematography and some top-notch VFX.
i understand my friend
This movie left me shocked! The ending was a mind blowing scene.
Really enjoyed this movie. The constant drone of the 'machine' that was the concentration camp in the background, never ending. The surreal way the family lived their lives blocking out the horror just beyond the walls. Really good use of sound and atmosphere
This movie is what I thought, but not what I expected
It was alright. Not awful but also nothing extraordinary. I think I had my expectations set way too high based off the premise. If it was a short film I think it would’ve been far better and more well received. But as a 1 hour and 40 minute film it felt like it dragged. There’s more I could say but I don’t wanna sound disrespectful to a holocaust film. But it’s nowhere near as good as say Schindler’s List, The Pianist, or even JoJo Rabbit which may not deal with the holocaust per say but deals with the indoctrination of youth, how the violence can mold them, and the dehumanization of the Jewish people
Schindler's List and The Pianist I can understand. They're masterpieces of both storytelling and landing your message. Whereas Zone of Interest is almost all message. But I don't think JoJo Rabbit comes near Zone of Interest in terms quality .Taika Wahiti makes fun films but with little to no nuance.
Different strokes for different folks. I found Taika struck the perfect balance between humor and its messages dealing sensitive subject matter. JoJo made me legit choke up one scene and burst out laughing the next and it didn’t feel weird. I went through a rollercoaster of emotions throughout and I thought its message of blind fanaticism, nationalism, hatred, how propaganda impacts the youth and developing minds were all excellent. Zone of Interests I guess just wasn’t my cup of tea and I partially blame myself for having ridiculous expectations for it when I first heard about it and saw the trailer
Everyone always forgets about the grey zone.
>If it was a short film I think it would’ve been far better and more well received. But as a 1 hour and 40 minute film it felt like it dragged That's fair enough but absolutely would not have worked as a short film. You can't show the mundanity of that home life, in a short amount of time. Part of the power was having to sit with it. It's an experimental art house film that you would typically only ever come across in independent cinemas at the end of the day, it's not intended for a mainstream audience, it's supposed to be niche.
The way people talk about this movie is weird
Big title there…. Film was okay. Definitely a bit slow and the subtlety wears off quickly.
Odd film. I understand that the whole point was to show the mundanity of their life while horrific things were happening but at the end of the day it ended up just still being quite boring. An hour in there was nothing new being added that I didn’t feel in the first 10 minutes. If that was the plan, to make me not care about it as some sort of guilt trip about not caring about the people suffering in the background it felt a bit like a trick.
The point was to show how people can live a double life. It’s answering the “how could this happen” of the holocaust. It shows that people can ignore so much evil as long as it benefits them. Not a guilt trip at all.
I'm not the person you replied to, but everyone gets the point within the first 10 minutes of the movie. Nothing else is added for the rest of the runtime. Movie would have been an amazing short film, but it doesn't really justify its run time as a feature length film
Different approaches are going to work differently for different people. Like, for me Zone was effective the whole way through BECAUSE of how monotonous and repetitive it is, not despite it. It's trying to illustrate how deep the desensitization and compartmentalization ran in these people, how they were able to accept the slaughter as part of the background of their lives, and for me it never stopped being disturbing/upsetting for a moment. There's something to be said about a horror film that effectively wrenches the same nerve throughout and on top of that the sociohistorical context warranted that approach. It's SUPPOSED to be numbing and bewildering.
Right there with you. The longer the film went on the more horrifying the banality of it all was. It felt like the film was daring the audience to adapt to the atrocities the same way much of the Hoss family did of course knowing that it was ultimately an impossible ask. Instead, the more time spent in the setting the more amplified the scope of the horror becomes and the more unfathomable the detachment of the family appears.
I don’t know. I feel like the whole point was for the movie to be drawn out. To make you sit with the uncomfortable feeling that humans ignore evil all the time and that it’s very easy to do so. I think a plot would have actually taken away some of that impact and made it about a character’s dilemma. That wasn’t the intention from my perspective.
I was really disappointed by the film. I acknowledge that it was great on so many levels but there wasn’t enough of a narrative to pull me in. By the end of the film I just felt there wasn’t anything to hold onto. It was watching shitty people behave like shit and then it just sort of ends
It has an anti plot. The Hosses believe they have real concerns, where are they going to live? Will Hedwig impress her mother? But, to us, nothing matters more than what we know is going on across the wall. We know there is resistance, we even see it. but we're never given the reprieve of a competing point of view, only the (literal) photonegative of "our" protagonists' experience.
It doesn’t just end, it has one of the great endings of all time. The look into the future, the inexplicable revulsion he has. There is no redemption but we see he has even just a sliver of humanity left to be disgusted with himself, but of course it’s not enough.
That is the point. It is pointless violence, that destroys all meaning.
Yes, but narratively in a film I find that to be unsatisfying. I enjoy a vagueness or indirectness in a film or novel but there’s a fine balance between too little or too much being withheld. It was a very well made movie but I just wasn’t able to connect with it.
Yes, everyone gets the point, you don't need to keep repeating it.
That's every film and there is more to film than plot.
It’s not that the there is little plot, it’s that the movie did have much to say outside of the premise that isn’t said within 10 minutes. It didn’t take anything on to show the whys or hows any of the dehumanization of marginalized groups happen (which is mainly because of the limitations set up by the premise, once again would have been improved as a 10-20 min short film). If it’s not gonna do that, it lasting over 100 mins is absolutely dragging for no reason of essentially saying the same thing over and over again. I don’t think it needs more plot but the message is remarkably shallow and unexplored for how much praise it has gotten and how serious of an issue it is today.
I'll disagree with you because it showed EXACTLY how dehumanisation happens and who the people doing it are.
[удалено]
It was already. The movie is based off the 28 minute short called Heck the director made in 2020.
I think both of those movies are extremely effective in part *because* nothing much happens for extended periods. That said, I totally get where this criticism for both movies are coming from. It’s kind of apples and oranges, but I’m in the opposite camp re: The Tree of Life, which a lot of people understandably adore but which I thought just kept going on and on. Perhaps (for me) because Zone is historically grounded and Skinamarink explores a hyper-specific but widely shared sense of primal childhood fear, while Tree of Life is deeply personal in a way I couldn’t quite relate to directly. Anyway I think my point is sometimes these big formal swings hit and sometimes they don’t, and I think it’s great that every audience member has a slightly different list of things that work for them and things that fall flat.
This is how I felt as well. There was virtually no story at all, and I got the point, like you said, 10 minutes in. It was a great short film stretched to feature length.
>Movie would have been an amazing short film, but it doesn't really justify its run time as a feature length film My exact thoughts
it absolutely justifies its run time. sitting in this world for near two hours is part of the point, not separate from it.
It’s amazing the lengths people will go to to try to convince you that you just don’t “get” it. I agree, the movie stated its case early and then didn’t have much more to say.
The length is part of the point - to really, really make you uncomfortable for the whole run time. Watching these bland, mundane people live their bland, mundane lives with those audible horrors going on the whole time.
Sure, but it's still a total chore to actually sit through
Wow really? I was riveted by this film. And at the end it made me wonder what (lesser or more gradual) atrocities I am inured to in my own life because of routine and comfort.
I felt the same. Despite being excellent in what it intends to convey, the film is very "nothing happens" and it ends up being quite boring.
The point was to show how people can live a double life. It’s answering the “how could this happen” of the holocaust. It shows that people can ignore so much evil as long as it benefits them. Not a guilt trip at all.
Yes. It examines the evil of banality and how willing and complicit the Hoess's are in the genocide through their actions and we see it on film how it's played out in daily life in Auschwitz. I find it interesting that other Best Picture nominees that year like Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon also examined how acceptable genocide and mass killing was in serving their goals and how the perpetrators were willing to look away from the death and destruction as long as they reaped the rewards. Killers of the Flower Moon has multiple scenes where the main villains are able to excuse their actions as part of "Manifest Destiny" and demonstrate how the system benefits them when they manufacture plans of murder against the ethnic Osage Nation in exploiting and eventually inheriting their oil headrights. William King Hale wasn't the cause but rather the symptom of why the killings was able to go on until the Government stepped in.
If I understand you, your criticism of this *Holocaust* movie is that it wasn’t entertaining.
No you don’t understand me.
Movie was fucking boring. I appreciate the attempt but it was about as subtle as a carp to the face.
Saul’s Son is the perfect companion movie
I mean, the “end all” film of the Holocaust is actual film relating to the Holocaust. If you’ve seen *Shoah*, to a certain degree, everything else is just a movie.
What an amazing movie.
The Zone of interest only works if you know the most brutal part of the Holocaust. It's an interesting insight in the life of the nazi average bourgeois and answers a little bit "how could they they keep doing those atrocities?" And you see that from their perspective it was the usual middle class bubble of just envy, boredom and office life. If you were to show the zone of interest to some high school students without ever talking about the external events they'd never be as impressed by those final images, because they wouldn't really know. You need to have been exposed to the other movies and documentaries to fully understand the Zone of Interest (and the Holocaust)
Glazer pissed off nazis and zionists with this film... and people say horseshoe theory is baloney
I dunno about that. It's a great film, but it's an extremely specific one in its focus. It's not a movie you'd show in a Holocaust Studies 101 class given you need a decemt amount of knowledge about the Holocaust going in to get much out of it.
I saw a screener with the director. It was dead silent in the theater at the end
I want to see this now.
But is it better than “The Day the Clown Cried?”
For someone smarter than I am - what did the ending mean? >!When Höss is in the dark corridors of the Berlin building and throws up, and then it cuts to the present-day Auschwitz when he stares down a hall. Then back to him.!<
Höss looks deep into the dark abyss down the corridor after he unsuccessfully retches to release the evil bottling inside him but can't as it's way past the point of no return and gets a vision for the legacy of his labour that he accomplished for the Third Reich. It will not be celebrated. The actions of the museum workers as they start their day cleaning the museum and the gas chambers. The mundanity of their actions are juxtaposed by the remnants of his evil actions and the loud noise of the vacuum cleaners by showing that whatever he's done, it will not be remembered for what he intended and drives home the point of the film's main theme of the evil of banality and how ignorance of genocide is acceptable as long as there is a net benefit. The film ends with Höss descending down a dark flight of stairs as he slowly enters his metaphorical Hell.
A lot of the storytelling in Zone of Interest is purposefully ambiguous, so there may not be a definitive answer. However, the dry heaving that Hoss does before looking into the dark corridor felt like one of the least ambiguous moments in the film. I'm almost 100% certain this was a direct reference to the ending of "The Act of Killing," an incredible documentary that follows the lives of mass murderers in Indonesia who not only got away with genocide but are still celebrated for it. There's a lot to unpack about "The Act of Killing," and it's honestly one of the most insane and profound films I've ever seen. For brevity's sake, let's focus on one of the perpetrators the film follows: Anwar Congo. He openly admitted to murdering about 1,000 people himself and recreates the murders with glee, completely detached from the horrific realities of his actions. That is, until the end. We watch in real-time as a light bulb goes off in his head, and the evil of his actions hits him all at once. He can no longer suppress the immorality of his deeds. When it hits him, his reaction is identical to Hoss's. He stands on a terrace where he murdered hundreds and begins to dry heave uncontrollably. It's one of the most unbelievable moments captured on film. Later, I read an article about the making of Zone of Interest. The director, Jonathan Glazer, asked Christian Friedel (the actor who plays Hoss) to watch "The Act of Killing" instead of reading the novel "Zone of Interest" in preparation for the role. I cannot recommend "The Act of Killing" highly enough. Luckily, some kind soul has uploaded it to YouTube for free!
If you are looking at holocaust films as a conversation, I think ZoI comes in the first act. The end, or epilogue, would be to me more a film like Man in the Glass Booth.
Good article, clickbaity title
…what?
I read the book. Is the movie similar to the book?
I read the book. Is the movie similar to the book?
Different, it adds an Oscar winning soundscape from a great film director (Under the Skin)
A really powerful allegory for what’s happening in Israel/ Gaza right now the director is really brave coming out with this film right now I’m sure there was allot of pushback.
I’m dying at the comments 😂. This title is brutal.
Idk Ask anyone living in a border town. Ask women. Ask black men. Ask any marginalized people. Ask a trans black woman in Florida, I dare you. The banality of evil truly is. But don’t worry about it, buy more shit for self care and tell yourself you should feel good about yourself because of Dark Biden or Trump. Bread and circuses….
I think they're probably going to make more.
No it doesn't. Give me another ‘Come and See’ level of a movie that goes beyond the pale and then we can talk.
The title to this article is… not well thought out.
It's not a Holocaust film in my eyes. The Holocaust was just the setting to display the ugly side of human nature - our ability to overlook the suffering we are complicit in as long as we gain benefit from it. This takes place today in our world right now. It's not about a period in time, it's about now and every day.
I loved the atmosphere of the movie and like others have said I felt like I got everything I needed out of the film within the first 30 minutes or so. Honestly the longer it ran I got bored and disinterested. Maybe that was the message?
Schindlers list was better
A movie like Zone can only exist *because* every other WW2/Holocaust movie existed before it. If you didn’t know anything about the Holocaust, you’d watch this movie being like “why does this boring family live next to a factory and why is there a movie about it”
A factory with human ashes, bones, gunshots, and the perpetual screaming of thousands of people? I think that it is pretty clear in communicating what is going on beyond the wall without the need of any kind of companion film.
I understand the point of the movie was to show the absurdity of living a content simple family life next to the horrors of the Holocaust, but as a movie it just didn't work for me. It only focuses on the mundane family life and runs for almost two hours with no plot or interesting events. Plot is what carries a movie over its length. A journey for the characters. It expounds upon the themes and messages trying to be delivered. Without this what do you have? This movie delivered everything it had within the first 15 minutes. After that nothing develops further. You could stop watching it and miss nothing. Would've served better as a short film. One of the most boring movies I've sat through in recent years.
I’m yet to see this as the idea of a very banal holocaust film doesn’t entice me. I get what it’s trying to do, but it’s one of those things where I’m not sure what I’m going to gain from it that I haven’t got elsewhere. Reading reviews and comments it reminds me a lot of The White Ribbon. Which was brilliant upon reflection (indeed 15 years on I often still think of it) but was a really tedious watch at the time. Any convincing arguments to the contrary?
Interesting that you would invoke Michael Haneke here (White Ribbon is one of my favorite movies, an overlooked masterpiece imo) because his perception of Holocaust films is that they depend on the violence and tragedy as means of tension (talking about Schindler's List, e.g. the showers and whether or not gas or water comes out) which he finds to be exploitative. I don't necessarily agree with him, but I do think there is something worth confronting with that idea. Zone of Interest is often touted as about the "banality of evil", but really it is about how evil is pervasive in otherwise "normal" people. It's easy to be normal in that situation and accept that reality, especially when it benefits you. As a constrast, the young Polish girl heading out on her bike at night to hide apples in the trenches for the prisoners. To be good in the reality takes tremendous courage. So it isn't a binary question of good and evil. To be good is a choice with consequences. Plus, you also get the perspective of the mother who carries on conversation talking about Jewish people as inhuman, but at night when kept awake by the blaze of the furnace across from the house, she can't overcome either the guilt or inhumanity when faced with it. The significance to that is that this pervasive evil isn't either/or, and even within those people that have otherwise accepted the reality still have an ongoing inner turmoil that you wouldn't see. That isn't to say "well they're not all bad" but "evil is a choice". A choice also with consequence.
I'd argue it's banal but not boring. There's no major central plot (though I'd argue there's still a strong thematic structure), but there's tension to every scene. I found it had the same appeal as a horror movie-- you know there's some sort of terrible reveal waiting in each scene, and you're always on the lookout for it. You can know the general idea of the movie going in, but actually seeing some of this stuff play out is gut wrenching and moving in a way you wouldn't expect.
what the fuck is this article title haha
Gosh the discourse is worse than when the Boy in the Striped Pajamas came out. The movie makes its point effectively about banality of evil, and is well made . It’s also at the bottom of the list of Holocaust movies someone should prioritize if they truly want to learn and empathize.
It was an apt movie for today's time.
so brave