Thursday, April 11th 2024

ZONE OF INTEREST

Dir. JONATHAN GLAZER, USA 2023, 105 min. Christian Friedel is quite effective in his portrayal of the Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss here. He and wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) offer us one of the most stark contradictions ever seen on screen. The beautifully manicured garden of a delightful family home with an unique next door neighbour. That would be the Auschwitz concentration camp of which he was in control. We follow his selection to run the place, his increasing role in implementing the extermination processes and then gradually, as he is promoted again, their realisation that the idyllic life they want for themselves is doomed. It’s the brutal comparisons that work best here. We don’t really see anything graphic on screen, that’s all left to our already well enough developed imagination. COME EARLY, SOCIALIZE // FILMS SHOULD BE A COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE