Zone of Interest

I'm dropping the "The" from The Zone of Interest, my only humble suggestion. Jonathan Glazer's film is about a real family living on the grounds of Auschwitz - we all know about it - Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. Glazer's work takes a look at Rudolf Höss, his wife Hedwig and their children living a fairy tale type of life with the big dark shadow of Auschwitz always looming in the backdrop.

The film is difficult to watch and was difficult to make. The director's choice to wire cameras hidden amidst plants and staged scenery creates a documentary feel to the piece and it works. In fact, the camera takes on it's own persona, something I'm mesmerized with in filmmaking. As when something magical happens and the 'film goddess' takes command as she will do. There is definitely another dimension added to the film by this strategic decision.

I was struck by the piecing together of scenes almost as if looking at the movie as a
work of art as in a large painting of a historic event. Upon close examination, me in the movie theater seated between two men I did not know added to the mystery of the experience. I watched parts placed together as a whole as if I were in an art museum taking apart a huge work with my eyes. The women in Hedwig's circle fishing through undergarments which once belonged to victims at the huge concentration camp. Something struck me as always occurs to me in real life as when you see someone on the news who's committed a great crime and they're wearing expensive clothing such as Paul Manefort's ostrich coat. I always wonder if their offense was truly worth getting to wear a pretty outfit?


Hedwig putting on the bright red lipstick that had once belonged to another woman. And wiping it off with no explanation like a dark secret. Same with a mink coat. Modeling it in the privacy of her room. The son going through his collection of gold teeth. Back to the camera again. Even though these scenes were likely filmed by actual cameramen, the stage had been set so to speak. The camera as its own force entwined in the fabric of the story.

So I was a little bit surprised that Polish cinematographer Lukasz Zal's work was looked over by the Oscars. Zal said he had

to “forget everything I was taught” about making “beautiful images.” From Hollywood Reporter "For Zal, the challenge was to strip away what he calls the “Hollywood approach” of “fetishizing history” with “beautiful actors in beautiful light [wearing] beautiful uniforms” to find an “ugly, objective” way to show evil “as something ordinary, like mending a coat or cleaning the floor.” He goes on to defend his term "fetishizing" by referencing Hollywood Nazi movies with their dark shadows and how he reversed the style by shooting everything "bright and light and normal." Wow. It did have a powerful effect, much more so than the typical storm trooper black and white films of the forties and so on up to Schindler's List. Terrifying indeed.

Zone did pick up a nomination for sound and well deserved. I love sound and worked hard to pass my own film classes as they required proficiency in physics, something I'm no master of by a long shot. So I love me some great sound. Maybe I should mention here how wonderfully the various say acting, writing, sound, camera, etc. all work together in this film to tell the story. But back to the sound department's designer Johnnie Burn and mixer Tarn Willers. Burn uses two sound tracks, one of the dialogue, score and sound effects, "what you would expect the movie to sound like, based on what you’re watching." And the second track "has the sounds of Auschwitz. It’s filled with blaring sirens, frequent gunshots, the bellow of chimneys churning out smoke, and the screams of prisoners being abused and executed. It’s absolutely horrifying...Well, [the audience] can close their eyes, but they can’t close their ears,” Burn said.

What I got was a huge flip flop from the Von Trapps and the endearing The Sound of Music we all grew up with. Both films center on the story of family life in the midst of time of horror. Jonathan Glazer wanted the audience "to be confronted with a reflection of ourselves..." That he did. I saw bad and I saw good in myself. During the film I kep asking what I would do were I living in Poland in that time. Would I be the girl on the bicycle with the apples or would I be the woman wearing the bright lipstick of someone burned to death in the ovens? I caught myself wanting from the very beginning to see bad things happen to this family, bad things, horrible things which included their children, even that screaming baby. How was I any different.

I want to go back to my American Government classes from Dr. Bill Pederson who taught me so much about horror and Nazi's and people, what we're capable of. That's where I learned about the Stanford prison experiment and the Stanley Milgram experiment. Where I learned that we all have bad parts and are capable of great evil. Me included. So Glazer did what he set out to do.

In my own life, I rescue dogs. Maybe it's to make up for that horrible part in me that I'm aware of, that part that doesn't want to

be there, that wants to be good. The animals in The Zone of Interest, Rudi's beloved horse in which (dark humor here) he pledges his true love. Everything else in Rudi's life at this point you realize is projected from his sense of duty. The wife, the children, the job incinerating mass numbers of human beings, all things he masters as accomplishments, but the one bare truth to his horse..."I love you..." to me almost comical. Especially if you know about horses. They are working creatures and see us humans as the buffoons we are. And the dog. He probably gets more screen time than anyone else in the film, but nobody pays him any mind whatsoever less one casual petting from Rudi.

I like to try and figure if the filmmaker is vegan. I can usually tell from the layout of the meals in a movie. I'm thinking Glazer has a vegan sentiment. A lone pig wandering with no explanation. I'm not comparing the act of vegan choices to the horrors of human extermination in any sense, but looking at the choices we make as thinking people.

I don't know about The Zone of Interest winning best film as I've not seen the rest of the nominees yet, but I will say it should be experienced on the big screen to do it justice. I have been a lucky girl in my film going experiences with great people. Bill Pederson (already mentioned) - Ed Lowry my totally wonderful film teacher who left us way too soon and I believe would have commanded us to see this film .. and lastly my friend Phillip Guilbeau...I thought of Phillip all through this movie...it was truly a Phillip kind of film.