The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, 2023) Sandra Hüller, Christian Friedel, Freya Kreutzkam; The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Peter Bradshaw:
The film, with its superb score by Mica Levi and sound design by Johnnie Burn, has undoubted power but might well revive the debate about conjuring slick movie effects from the horrors of history ... the film does try to accommodate Jewish testimony, though the final coda sequence in the modern-day Auschwitz museum may absolve the film of flippancy, but does oddly represent a kind of loss of nerve – as if the movie finally can’t bear to stay within the prison of historical irony and has to flashforward out of there to restate its humane credentials. Yet there can be no doubt of Glazer’s focus on an evil which creates its own banality, the banality which allowed the mass murderers to go about their business. The Guardian.
Garry Gillard | New: 2 January, 2024 | Now: 1 March, 2024