Holocaust days are here again, with a largely factual account of the life of the commandant of Auschwitz living with his family in contentment right next to the death camp. Martin Amis's source novel took more liberties with the facts, so Glazer went straight to the documented events. Unlike any previous film tackling the issue, The Zone of Interest shows nothing of the mass extermination going on on the other side of the wall. It's only heard as screams, dogs barking and gunshots, and the implied constant stench of the crematorium. The family, in their ornately flowery garden, are not only unaware of what's actually going on, but uninterested and quite deaf to it. Yes, the eternal banality of evil, but also a study of the evil of materialism and self-interest.
This means virtually nothing of consequence happens on screen, so it's dramatically very flat, but also means it works as a new approach to explaining how the atrocities could keep being committed undisturbed.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment