This film did not scare me, it angered and moved me. The callousness, the worthless self-satisfaction, the ordinary inhumanity, the kind that makes you go from wishing death on an entire people to cheerfully talking about designer clothes with no pause, the attitudes displaye by the characters are something I've seen time and time again in the people around me, some of them even close to me. I live in a viciously and almost culturally racist part of my country, and watching this film made me feel as if someone had finally shone a light on and taken to task the breathless immorality I've seen but never spoken out against in my life. It was cathartic, and heartwrenching.
The cut towards the end of the film has to be one of the most breathtaking time jumps in the history of cinema. The vacuuming of dust and polishing of the museum. That sequence will stay with me forever
I audibly gasped at that edit. The significance was immediate. That this is the only view to the other side of the fence, and it is the mundane preservation of this horrific setting, was so chilling.
Having just seen the film, and been to Auschwitz, the cut scenes took me straight back to those rooms in Auschwitz 1. Each room affected people differently, my mate cried at the shoes, the suitcases got me, but.. the scene of the original gas chamber (which is at 🎉the back of Hoss’s house) was where I saw that little trolley that carried the bodies to the furnace. Somebody designed that, somebody drew that on a table, and probably a few times, to get it right. For me it summed up the cold, callousness of the whole extermination system. A very clever film that leaves you questioning many things about it, and why, because when have you ever seen anything before you so barbaric, just being ignored so will-fully ignored., who can come away from that with any answers that make any sense.
Very impactful especially as you only hear the atrocities then the film slams the reality in your face. And if you know history as well; you know exactly how many died from Hungary.
For anyone wondering about the dreamlike, fairytale scenes of the girl hiding food for the prisoners, Jonathan Glazer has spoken about this. The film was shot in natural light and he wanted this to follow through for the entire film. As these were night shots, Glazer used thermal imaging cameras to shoot these scenes. Also, Kermode mentioned whether these scenes were like a 'glimmer of light'. Glazer has corroborated this in interviews. The girl in the film is based on a real woman who Glazer interviewed during research for the film. At the time he interviewed her he was considering not making the film because he thought it was just too dark and tragic a story. Then after speaking to her and hearing her story of hiding food for the prisoners, she became Glazer's beacon of hope. It makes the thermal imaging shots (where she is a bright shining light amongst darkness) even more powerful. Unfortunately she died before the film was finished, but her courage lives on in this film forever.
By the way: my understanding is that the poetry lines, which are superscripted once the Polish girl arrives back home, are texts written by a prisoner, and which she found in a box placed by the prisoner at the spot where the girl usually leaves food. I’m neither sure this interpretation is correct - at least, that’s how I understood it during the film - nor if the texts are authentic, though I suspect they are
I love the symbolism of these sequences. The girl is doing her own form of "gardening," and the use of infrared signals an inversion of the film's moral perspective. If you notice, the mother-in-law also appears in infrared as she shakes out the sheets (presumably to get the smell/ashes out). She then decides to leave overnight.
I don’t know if it was the way it was sequenced, I think the first of these scenes cuts from one of the children sleeping or sleep walking or something. Could be completely wrong but it left the feeling that the kids in the house were subconsciously affected by the things they could hear (and smell)
I was significantly more disturbed by this than some of the more graphic depictions of mass murder I've seen. Omission is a very powerful tool in cinema. The way it was all kept at a distance caused me to think more deeply about the Holocaust and how people were able to do that than anything I've seen to date. Really simple and really brilliant idea in my opinion. The tight shot of Hoss' face while he's in the camp and the sequence with the flowers will probably haunt me forever.
I think you might have to do it that way. I've been working on a way to write a dramatic script about Sobibor or Treblinka (I'm aware two about the former exist) but it's just kind of impossible to do it straightforwardly in a realistic manner. Noone will want to watch some of the stuff that actually happened.
'Omission is a very powerful tool in cinema'. THIS THIS THIS. Restraint is a massively important quality in a filmmaker, particularly when dealing with difficult, sensitive subject matter. I feel similarly to what you describe above with regards to Lynne Ramsay's marvelous direction and editing decisions in You Were Never Really Here, which I view as some of the very best portrayals of violence, true violence, what violence means to humanity and what it does to a person, ever put to film. I haven't seen Zone of Interest yet, but looking forward to it.
@@TheDemonicPenguin and it would be very hard to visually recreate. For one thing, there is no safe way for an actor to lose enough weight to look right.
This is why many people say that radio shows in the old days was so powerful. You didn't need to see anything; everything was all in your mind, which made it even more terrifying.
Honestly want to give more praise to Christian Friedel, who played Höss. Id seen him in a few things, most notably Haneke's The White Ribbon and Babylon Berlin, but knew little about him besides that. Hearing and reading his interviews, and him recounting his experience playing this character (having nightmares, panic attacks, crying when he had to films without Sandra Hüller because they'd given each other emotional support when they were filming together and was now without it) really brought to light just how mentally taxing it must be to have to embody such evil in such a...nonchalant way. To have the weight of history on your shoulders even for a short time, to be intimately aware of the scale of this person's atrocities and still have to play him as a regular man who wants to do well at work and loves his kids... to not be able to make a caricature but play him straight and human is quite the undertaking, and from the way he speaks, and the way others talk about him, he comes across as the sweetest person ever. So now I have yet *another* layer of appreciation for this movie and those involved.
Just saw this tonight. The bit at the end where Hoss is looking at the door then it cuts away was absolutely brutal and really forces you to come to terms with what you've been watching for the last 90 minutes. That made me pretty emotional.
I haven't seen the film yet but just that line of dialogue "Is Mrs. Siebelman in there? The one I used to work for?" sent a shiver down my spine and a horrified sensation in the pit of my stomach
I thought it was quite chilling as well, and it shows yet different sides of humanity: greed, oppression, and envy. Mrs Siebelman had a nice house and finery, whereas the character and her daughter (the wife) had barely anything. It's like Paulo Freire said: without transformational education, the oppressed's dream is to become the oppressor.
There is another reference to (presumably the same) Mrs. Silverman, making it clear that "they" were no longer people; just things to be used and exploited.
I finally saw this last night. A remarkable, chilling, harrowing film that makes you question your own indifference and the paths it can lead to. Remarkable.
On the topic of sound, which I agree it fully deserved the Oscar for, if you listen with headphones or good speakers, all of the scenes in and around the house have a low rumble in the background. It is made explicit later what it is (no spoilers, but I think you can guess) and that is just so genius and so effective. This industrial rumble that underscores that Auchwitz was a death factory and even when you are looking at a lovely garden, that rumbling sound never goes away.
The first 60 seconds, which is a blank screen with sound only is genius and brave, alluding to how important sound is to the movie. Such a harrowing film, brilliantly constructed. Sometimes the most frightening things are those that we cannot see.
One comment about Mayo's recollections of Rudolf Höss's story. Höss testified in Nuremberg, but then was handed to the Poles. He was tried and executed in Poland in 1947. Apparently, the hanging took place in in the former Auschwitz camp. The Polish equivalent of the Masterpiece Theatre, Teatr Telewizji (TV theatre), produced a play on Höss trial in the late 1970s or early '80s. This is how I was introduced to this figure in my early teens.
It seems appropriate that he returned to Poland to face justice. One thought I had watching the film was how the idea of Poland had been eradicated from their world replaced by 'the East' where the living room was found. Opening on that beautiful lake scene or later canoeing in the river there's no geographical marker or sign where this is situated. The servants in the house are referred to as 'locals', it's another eradication.
Two sequences were highlights to me. The negative sequence of the mother pulling the washing in from the balcony which was almost a Balletic dance looked incredibly strange and the other of the flowers in the garden with the screams in the background. The very flowers themselves seemed to be screaming. So incredibly strange and wonderful at the same time.
There's one shot - a low angle shot of Höss, but inside the camp instead of at the periphery. All of the sound that's been buried in the mix is suddenly brought right to the fore. It's the most disturbing 15 seconds in a film since the 'digestion' scene in Nope.
@mattyjohnsson257 not a competition but yes it does feel even more effective. Nope was more visual so there wasn't much need for us to think, although both still horrifying
One of the most heartbreaking scenes was when we hear an Auschwitz inmate getting drowned in the river because he was fighting with another inmate over an apple - presumably one of the apples placed by the young Polish girl. So even in her act of kindness, she was indirectly responsible for a gruesome death.
PS Yes you’re right, it was heartbreaking and disturbing - I think it’s the only time we clearly hear what is being said over the wall (or rather read the subtitles if you’re mono-glottal English like me).
See, I counted this against the film. Because, the film isn't affecting me, my prior knowledge of the Holocaust is. Especially the scene at the end with the modern Auschwitz. I don't give the film credit for the work of the museum.
@@Dinglehoppers779 We bring our awareness and preconceptions to any film that deals with well known historical events, and they affect the way that we watch it. That is something that film makers can exploit to great effect, which does not make them less creative. Creating the soundscapes for this film must have been extremely challenging. To make a film that does not rely on the visual image for its most visceral impact, but on a soundtrack of ambient noise that the audience is expected to interpret accurately, played against the counterpoint of what we do see, is a very bold artistic choice - and one that seems to have paid off, from what I've read. In this video I think we see very clearly how thoughtful and intentional the production was throughout - it seems anything but lazy to me.
It's a masterpiece, extremely powerful, best film of the year so far, imo. The bits of music throughout the film are frightening. as is the household itself. Not an ordinary household, but a terrifying place.
The 9hr epic film "Shoah", by Claude Lanzmann, is filmed in the present (of the late '70s and early '80s) and never shows a single corpse. Indeed, it goes for some 4hrs, much of it on trains, tracing the paths of the death trains, using terms like "cargo", "load", and other terms that never let on the trains are carrying people who will be expeditiously murdered, before it ever uses the word "victim". And when the word "victim" is finally used, it hits you like a ton of bricks. It has many interviews with camp survivors as well as non-Jews who either worked in the camps or participated in the administrative side of extermination, including those living just outside the boundaries of the camps. Despite its lack of visual violence, it is a very disturbing film to sit through, with a lasting impact. I've watched the whole thing twice. People can be so dispassionately cruel to each other. Watch that you don't slide down that particular ramp.
@@davidglow3 Look for Chicago Humanities Festival interview with Martin Amis, the author of the book "The Zone of Interest", that the film is based on; a fascinating and disturbing analysis.
It’s a very difficult very long watch but I think it’s the closest you’ll get to understanding what happened from an outside perspective. It’s life changing really.
What makes you think we're dumb enough to slide through that same ramp? Speak for yourself because it sounds like you have doubts about your own self control
Well you're outdone yourselves this time. This is why it's important to see film reviews done by professionals who have an in-depth understanding of both the subject matter and the director's vision. Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's insightful review of "The Zone of Interest" showcases their unparalleled expertise and background knowledge, elevating the viewing experience for their audience. The ability to delve into the nuances of the film's themes, characters, and overall narrative demonstrates a level of analysis that goes beyond surface impressions.
No doubt. Zone captures the mundane of the horror for those who run it, and Saul captures the complacency of the horror for those knee deep in the cleanup.
The infrared parts really stuck with me. Most of the movie is filmed with hidden cameras + natural lighting to render it familiar (and all the more disquieting) to western audiences because of our identification with the peace and prosperity of their lives. The shots of the girl hiding food is the one glimpse of humanity we're given, but the infrared photography establishes this unnerving, hostile feel, as if she's being surveilled by a drone or CCTV cameras... It gives these scenes a modern dimension I found incredibly eerie.
That's such an astute observation. I've been struggling for 2 months to articulate why those scenes "felt" so furtive to the viewer. You nailed it. It's because it mimics a sense of surveillance.
I saw Lukasz Zal talking about these infrared sequences, these cameras have low resolution so they used upscaling algorithms to make them fit for the movie but the effect of the process has indeed resulted in so much more than just infrared.
Arguably the greatest film of this century. I’ve seen it twice now and left thinking the same thought: A film I never want to see again. A film I need to see again.
This is a truly great film. Elements of it are still bubbling up and unsettling me, and I was fortunate enough to see the premiere at the LFF last October. 'A study in looking away' is I think the best description yet. It's so extraordinary it almost transcends cinema.
The film I would most compare the Zone of Interest to is 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is not entertainment, it is a work of pure art and challenges the viewer to look inward to ask profound questions. Glazer is a genius and he has created a towering masterpiece that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
The opening segment is definitely a shout out to 2001. The dark screen/haunting score that represents the monolith. In fact it’s the only part of the film I found derivative and wished Glazer made a different choice, despite how effective it is.
6:51 Small correction: Höss was arrested and hanged at Auschwitz itself, as a kind of symbolic gesture. He was heard at Nuremberg, but his actual trial took place in Poland.
The black and white infrared sequences were of someone (likely the chambermaid or someone in that lower class) that was hiding food among the labor camp tools and work areas so that the Jews didn't starve as much. Those sequences were taking place at night. You even hear about two prisoners that were fighting over one of the apples that was hidden later in the film when the child was drawing and the officer said to drown that prisoner in the river. Those sequences being done during the bedtime story portions felt like it was meant to illustrate how fairytale-like the act of bravery and goodness was to plant those apples at the risk of being found.
She left apples for all the prisoners, not just Jews. Many non-Jewish Poles died there too. The character is based on a real person - a polish girl who lived near the camp. Glazer interviewed her before shooting the film.
Saw this today and it was absolutely unnerving. The constant drone of unimaginable horror almost filters out after a while before realizing that's exactly what this family has done. The meeting room scene also left me feeling sick. Casually discussing mass murder but pausing to give apologies for the minutes. The mundanity of pure evil. Definitely a film to see but you will not leave in much of a talking mood.
This movie made me feel things I didn’t know I could feel. I didn’t think I could feel pain like that….but short of living it…I felt like I was there when I was listening to the film the second I time with headphones on. Holy shit, this movie almost broke me but I’m so thankful in the strangest way. It’s like public service everyone needs to see it.
I read his book/diary, he wrote it while in jail at his trial. I read it to understand their point of view having read as many survivor books and history books as I could get my hands on. At one point he shows some remorse for what he did to the Jews, etc. But not because of the horror of what he did, he was sorry because now that the nazis were defeated he was worried about what vengence the world would take on Germany. He was sorry for himself. It is a chilling lesson in what can happen so called normal people under certain circumstances. When truth is replaced by fake truth, when certain people for whatever reason are singled out and used as the blame for others problems, and when we create a world where my success needs someone else to fail. Not a million miles away from where we are today, Hoss didnt have horns, fangs and a tail, , most monsters don't. I disagree with Karmode and Mayo slightly, its not enough that the stories continue to be told, telling simply isnt enough. Its crucial that they are listened to and Ithink theres not much listening happening currently.
Extraordinary experience. Horrific. New cinema in many ways. Shocked it’s nominated as much as it is, not because it shouldn’t be but because the Oscar’s rarely acknowledge films this experimental and or this magnificent. This year an exception of course. I’m assuming the subject matter had a lot to do with it.
I just watched this last night. I didn’t get to see in the theater as I didn’t even see it freaking advertised in my area in South Carolina, but instead bought it on Amazon streaming. I was fully captivated by the film. The most disturbing scene in my opinion was the meeting with the crematorium company (Topfs and Sons?) who I had never heard of. I work in the industrial maintenance industry and I occasionally meet with vendors/contractors, and this scene just felt like a business meeting on how to improve the production quality in my plant, and that was unnerving to see these guys sitting there discussing the furnace process. Made me want to throw up. The jump to the present day as the memorial was being cleaned was also unnerving. I hope this films gets more recognition and more people eventually see.
“It was much better to imagine men in some smokey room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told the children bed time stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, then what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.” ― Terry Pratchett
The ‘storybook’ sequences didn’t feel any more tonally dissonant than the tableau of garden flowers accompanied by sounds of agony. They also made logical sense within the narrative. We overhear in the final third of the film an SS man informing Hoss that two prisoners were fighting over an apple - presumably one planted by their tools overnight by the girl to keep them alive - this is when the children hear their father order an execution on the spot. We also see the girl returning home carrying a poem by another prisoner, left for her to find in exchange for the life giving fruit. The poem is about hope, and she plays the piano as it is recited. These sections are explicitly about hope in the darkness, even when the acts of kindness themselves trigger yet more horror.
Damn, how did u know it was their father giving the order to execute? I understand he's the commander but I didn't think he'd be the only person with such power. It makes sense though, just surprised u got that
@journeyman2682 no I know that, I heard the voice outside too. I just didn't know that was the father specifically giving the order- or more importantly the son watching his father order an execution
@@wisco9er536 Ah, I can't recall the exact dialogue, but I think Hoess is addressed 'Commandant' by one of his officers who explains what the disturbance is and we then hear him ordering the murder.
I saw a preview of this exactly a week ago, genuinely one of the few films that really shook me to the very core, it’s uncomfortable, chilling, haunting and really makes you feel quite scared by not what you see but what you hear, a really fantastically well directed film with striking cinematography and solid acting, another fine piece of work by Jonathan Glazer once again, probably his best film to date.
I have not been able to stop thinking about this movie since I saw it 3 weeks ago. Absolutely chilling, yet wonderfully executed. Just a masterful piece of art. Even though the steel cold, detached, systematic rationale behind the slaughtering of millions of humans feels uniquely Nazi, this film is certainly relevant today. How far are we willing to go to ignore the suffering of others to protect our own interests.
Lot of people will watch this movie at home with the sound coming from their TVs and laptops. It won’t be the same. Also, for me this movie is like a Time Machine, where we go back in time, we know what happened but will keep ourselves at the comfortable distance, not even daring to peak inside. Movies like this are needed.
I was told that the 'flashback' sequences are actually shot on infrared and supposedly depict the true story of a local girl leaving food for the prisoners.
The actress who portrays her wears her dress, rides her bicycle and plays piano in her house. She was 90 years old when Glazer met her and passed away a short while later. An incredible person. He stated that she was like the light in the darkness that allowed him to get through making this film. Which ties into the way she's shot in infrared quite beautifully despite that developing as a matter of necessity because they couldn't think of any way to light her in that situation.
@@YogkogOh. I thought she was the one one who said she was providing sugar. Either way, the point is that children don't harbor the hate that the adults have adopted?
her name was Alexandria, she was a member of the Polish resistance. she was 90 was jonathan glazer met her. both the bike and the dress that's used in the film belonged to her (taken from the wiki page). i believe the camera was the FLIR camera, as i saw it noted in the credits.
I just keep thinking: The ending wasn't an epilogue. The film doesn't show us the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum (a testament to the Nazis failure to erase the Jewish people). It shows Höss. Höss stops, and retches, and looks, and sees. As if the enormity of his crime is reaching back out through time, clawing at him, body and soul. He stops, and retches, and looks, and sees. He straightens. He descends the stairs into darkness, and cements his place Hell.
That's a powerful reading. At the time of watching I didn't get that it suggests he consciously understands the scale of his crime. I thought about the shot of the peephole in the door as representing the 'lens of history'. If we do have Hoess's point of view in that shot we can't make out what's happening in the peephole, but even still his body retches. Unless he shares the vision of the present day that the filmmaker gives us as he zooms in. Another thing from this movie to think about.
"Tonight you will take the first step along a dark road from which there is no turning back. You will have to go on and on, from one madness to another, leaving behind you a wilderness of misery and hatred. And still you will have to go on, because you will find no horizon and see no dawn, until at last you are lost and destroyed. You are doomed, Captain of Murderers."
The “storybook sequences” were inspired by a woman named Alexandria, who Glazer met while researching the film. She described to him how, as a 12 year old, she used to cycle into the camp at night and plant apples for the starving prisoners. The dress the actress wears in those scenes, and the bike she is riding, really belonged to Alexandria and were used at that time.
Ditto. I felt like I'd been poisoned. Just completely wrong on a physical level. The sequence with the flowers and screams in the distance where the screen eventually saturated with red made me feel like I was gonna throw up.
I thought it was utterly superb. It made it's way into my top 10 of the year quite comfortably- if the Oscars have any sense then it will win for sound, it is a horrifying soundscape. It had that slow cinema element without being three hours long. It felt like a version of Jeanne Dielman 23 Quay du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles in a more compact, privileged way- not quite as epic, but using that same sort of typicity. The idea Mark talked about of looking at it from the side is the right one I think- there are so many images in this film about a family who are so brilliant at ignoring their position and turning a blind eye to the point of being emotionally hollowed out- the dull bits aren't dull, they're intriguing, and sort of creepy. I think the ending of it was slightly meshed, a little rushed and the storybook sequences felt strange, but there felt to me a fairy tale imagining of what might be on the other side in a nice juxtaposing way. Really strong work, an understated but regimented style, and I love films that reward you for paying attention.
Saw it today, the projectionist ballsed it up and the subtitles were missing. It took us, the 10 or so people who were there, about 20 minutes to realise. I know! So we had to watch the first 20 minutes a second time, after we all copped on. An experience.
Well, I have not seen this, but it's rare to see both Mark and Simon reacting in this way - in such a physical manner - to a film and it is difficult not to get a sense of the impact it has. The desire to analyse is strong when faced with such horror - to try and contain or understand how anything so awful can happen. If we attempt to understand Höss, we can view this through the analytic concept of the conscious (his home) and unconscious (the death camp). The psychological distance between the two buildings-the home (conscious) and the camp (unconscious)-mirrors the compartmentalisation within Höss's psyche, a mechanism that allows him to live with himself. This metaphorical reading of the buildings aligns with the psychoanalytic theory of the mind as a battleground of conflicting impulses, desires, and ethical considerations. The juxtaposition serves as a stark reminder of the capacity for human beings to normalise or hide from their darkest impulses, compartmentalising their lives to such an extent that they can function within one realm (the domestic) while causing immense suffering in another (the professional or ideological). "The Zone of Interest," through its portrayal of these two contrasting spaces, invites viewers to reflect on the depths of human denial, the capacity for evil, and the psychological mechanisms that allow individuals to live with themselves despite committing or being complicit in heinous acts. It underscores the importance of confronting the uncomfortable truths of history and the human psyche, challenging the audience to consider the ways in which individuals, and societies at large, compartmentalise and justify their actions. This is serious film-making.
You can tell what attracted glazer to the film and location becuase of how this house is the perfect metaphor for planet earth. Life and death happening at once. Heaven and hell happening at once. The garden of Eden and gates of hell next door to each other. A greenhouse on one side of wall that promotes growth of life while another building across the wall promotes death and carnage . The sounds of birds chirping clashing with sounds of screaming and crying, images of children playing while children being separated on other side of wall. Look at the flowers look at your man made pool, play with the dog. What’s that over the wall? Nothing… why do you care? It’s their fault not yours according to your family. Sorry to be so graphic but glazer just puts it all out there. People always ask how people sit around all day and not doing anything to stop atrocities … this family was RIGHT NEXT DOOR FOR A LONG TIME and their mind did not change… will we?
That’s a high bar for sure. Haven’t seen The Zone of Interest yet, but Come and See disturbed me to my core, beyond anything else I’ve ever seen on celluloid
Saw this film yesterday, I was very moved by it. The "dream sequences", I didn't feel were dream sequences, they were explained after second one transitions into colour indoors as being one of the servants in the house going in and out at night hiding apples where the jewish prisoners would find them during the day. The girl/woman doing this is shown as positive light against the blackness. Later in the film we heard in the background audio that a prisoner is being reprimanded and executed because of "fighting over apples" thus the irony is that the good act led to the death of somebody as well. Another detail I found very ironic is that Hedwig walks with a noticeable limp which is at odds with her status of perfect Ayrian mother. Other disabled people during the regime would have been on the other side of the wall. And the juxtaposition of the youngest boy playing with his toy soldiers whilst you can hear what's going on next door. The ending is discombobulating and indeed it should be. You wait for justice to be served during the span of the film - which it isn't - so it's important we are shown the flash forward to how Höss's actions will be seen by history. It's a remarkable film, I will be urging my friends to go and see it.
Mark. This was just beautiful and perfectly worded And your experience of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial . Echoes. I almost had a panic attack in the middle. But then could get out
They used naturalistic lighting for the film and the exterior night time scenes of a girl leaving food out for the prisoners was shot like that (x-Ray/inverted) because there was no lighting to light those scenes. It’s also a negative image. We see the film in positive, traditionally lit etc. this shows the evil of those surrounded by the atrocities and then the negative footage is the positive side, people doing good. It’s an interesting visual juxtaposition. I love the choice as it really implements Glazer surrealist style and acts as a through line through his filmography and career in adverts and music videos. I saw him talk at London film festival after the film and also tonight at BFI Southbank, he’s such a fascinating artist and my favourite of modern cinema.
At the end I realised my hands were glued to my legs and had been for ages. The sound design is something else. More than stays with you. I've seen the trailer since before another film and even the trailer was unsettling after experienceing the whole film. Really incredible film.
Ten (ish) years ago I watched Under the Skin which stayed with me for weeks. The scene where the two captive naked men are in the black liquid (?) environment, one reaches out to touch the other and they both instantly implode. The suggestion here for me was the 'Alien(s)' saying "Your humanity is not welcome here". And here I am again all these years later after watching The Zone of Interest, haunted all over again by what I watched and heard in the cinema. It's a masterpiece, it should be required viewing for everyone.
The " dreamy sequences" is a true story of a 12 years old young polish girl crossing the zone of interest giving food to a victim of the Shoah. They both met after the war.
Simon’s point about the fact that the rest of the family seem to skirt around what he does for a living is bang on, it’s disturbing 😬 great film, not what you expect but grips you from the off 👍 the sounds from afar really bring it home.
Incredible film. I couldn't tear my eyes away from it. The chilling soundscape and the 'musical' additions providing some kind of linked connection of industrial and horror made my hair stand on end. Incredibly well acted throughout and tightly shot. The cut at the end to the museum was a jarring, face slap of a scene. Where the mundane nature of what was happening lay parallel to the mundane nature of the household. I was left deeply affected and still can't stop thinking about it.
While the dreamlike sequences may be stylistically odd, their purpose is obvious. This is a Polish production. The Poles have always strictly refuted any collaboration with the Nazis. These scenes are meant to make clear that the housemaids are not collaborators. Also, later in the film there's a scene where off screen, just in sound, we witness prisoners being shot because of a fight over one of the hidden apples. Incredible that Sandra Hüller didn't get an Oscar nomination.
The part that got me most was when Hedwig's mother left without a word, as if escaping. Hedwig couldn't quite believe she had really gone. She left a note for her daughter, who for a moment faced the cruelty and horror of her life as if in a mirror. Then chose to look away again, and dispose of the note in the kitchen stove fires. The most chilling film I've seen for some time. A masterpiece that translates the past as the present and thus resonates even more due to the genocide taking place in Gaza today. That's why the creators made those speeches at the BAFTAs and Oscars and I applaud them and everyone involved in the film for the courage to speak out.
You likely won't ever forget this film. I think it's remarkable for many reasons. As they both said, the disinterestedness, the deflecting of what's happening over the other side of the wall is very powerful. It leaves the audience in constant unresolved tension, which for me cycled through injustice to anger, desperation, hopelessness and then pure terror. It captures that coldness brilliantly when the characters for a brief moment allow the actions of the camp to enter the forefront of their attention. It is unsettling to be left looking for the human story with such cruel people. Although it is a beyond vile subject matter it's really great to see film techniques being used to remind us that it is an expressive artform. The music, screen colours, thermal imaging & references to the 'historical real world' we know outside later in our time. The ending really struck me and brilliantly reinforced the horrific coldness that this actually happened. Well done to all involved.
Being a huge, huge, huge fan of Under The Skin I've been waiting so long for a new film from Glazer. Coming out of this one I was disappointed, but it has haunted me to a degree I'm not sure anything has. I feel sick, both physically and in my mind, when I think about it. The one thing that sticks with me is Hedwig waking up to find her mother had gone in the night. Think about that for a moment, and what it would take for your own mother to leave and be unable to even face you to say goodbye.. chilling.
Hopefully the recognition this film has achieved by being nominated for Oscars gets people to check out Glazer's other films. He is a truly genius filmmaker.
Just been to the cinema to see 'Zone of interest', the latest film by the brilliant Jonathan Glazer, whose Under the skin was my favourite film of 2013. Telling the story of Höss, kommandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, and the idyllic life he has with his children and horses in the house built next to the death camp. Much of the film concerns banal incidents, his socially ambitious wife showing guests around her house while Polish servants scurry out of her way. What is extraordinary however is the sound design of the film. Below the everyday chit chat are a low, endless and menacing drone, with screams, guard dogs, gun fire, trains arriving, yells in German a constant background of unspeakable horror. Höss comes across in the film like he came across in the book he wrote waiting for the hangman: caring for his own children while murdering other people's children daily in their thousands, uncaring and aloof...in his book he slags off all his fellow SS, doing them no favours in their upcoming trials. And extraordinary experience, one that echoes Hannah Arendt's description of Eichmann: the banality of evil.
I saw the preview today in the cinema and didn’t know exactly what it was about. I only gathered that it was set in nazi germany. Now that I found out what it is about , I I will definitely watch it. Its such an interesting take to show (in the extreme) how my ancestors looked the other wa. I always found that so interesting. How normal people did this. It was a slow process but in the end almost every one looked the other way.
Some key moments - the musical “jolts” (designed to wake us up from our complacency in what is happening ?), the girl leaving apples for the prisoners to eat (the light of the world?), and Herr Höss vomiting (the nature of his work catching up with him?).
Cinema has a horrible habit of portraying Nazis as monstrous caricatures of ‘evil’. It’s so much more potent and meaningful when a film such as this forces us to sit with the truth: that they were just people who were convinced to do horrific things.
In the wider context, it is also worth watching the BBC/HBO 2001 "Conspiracy", which focusses solely on the Wannsee Conference meeting of 1942, with Branagh, Tucci, Firth et al playing the main characters. As chilling (in its own way) in setting the scene (with similar scenes of detachment) for what was to follow at Auschwitz and the other camps.
I felt the thermal camera sequences were brilliant. To me, they played a dual role - at first they represent the dream of the sleepwalking daughter. She says she is "handing out sugar" in her subconscious state. The fairy tale illustrates her childlike capacity for fantasy - the impossibility of providing charity from her position, paired with the story of a magical swan giving passage across an impassable river. Clearly there is that impulse still within her to empathize with the camp's victims, however repressed. It is later revealed that the sequences are not a dream, but the actual heroic deeds of another young girl from the nearby town. This film says a lot about the reality of children brought up in these circumstances. From the incessantly crying baby, almost revolting at the constant oppressive noise from the camp, to the oldest son who imagines putting his own brother into a gas chamber, we are shown each step along the progression of learned evil. Yet through the dream sequences it is shown that compassion and heroism are not completely wiped out, no matter how suppressed. Perhaps the question remaining is - how sufficient is that goodness in the face of such insurmountable evil?
Someone needs to show this review to Ben Shapiro - who was apparently confused by the fact that a film about the Holocaust didn't have any Jewish people in it.
The "fairy tale"/"story book" sequences were just shot in infrared, I assume because Glazer wanted to avoid any artifice so he didn't shoot day for night or setup lights to be able to capture the actors with regular cameras. I also think it helped sell the audience that the hiding of the food is something that could only be done in the dead of night otherwise they would get caught.
Back from repeat screening, (I wanted to see it without the visceral internal screaming tension I felt first time), and it lost not an iota of its power on second viewing. Mark K's assessment as a "study of looking away" rings true. Remarkable film in every way.
The "fairy tale" sequences struck me as a Dogme 95 rule. No artificial light, therefore the night sequences of a local girl planting apples for prisoners was filmed in night vision. Yes gave a dream like otherness to the film but think it kept true to the, no artificial light or music manifesto of the picture x
Brilliant film. Not really about 'The Holocaust' IMHO, more about the human capacity to ignore the suffering of others, especially if their suffering benefits our lives. An allegory of current global economics.
the interlude score is etched into my brain permanently. i keep humming it ever since leaving the theater and i just need to listen to it again once the score is officially out
It's a brilliant film. One of the small details I thought was very powerful but easily missed is when Hedwig discards the note left by her mother (presumably articulating her inability to cope with the atrocities taking place over the fence) in what appears to be a coal burner/oven in the kitchen.
So glad I caught a screening of Zone of Interest. It’s so starkly effective. Funnily enough just watched Band of Brothers for the first time, with its shattering encore as they liberate Kaufering IV. This is its diametric flip. It absolutely captures Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’. By definition it relies on extremely clever sound design - if it doesn’t win every award going for this it will be a traversty. Mika Levi’s orchestration is superbly evocative too. Oddly in places this reminded me of “the greatest film ever made” ‘Jeanne Dielman’. ZOI creates a mounting unease: the rumbling din of death juxtaposed with the quotidian life of repetitious Dielman-esque chores and family picnics. We instinctively hate the family but at the same time it is filmed with no facial close-ups (that I recall) and Glazer keeps us at a stubbornly dispassionate distance. In Anatomy of Fall we feel so intimately connected to Sandra Huller - here we barely recognise here, or get to engage except on a level of visceral but detached contempt. It’s fascinating as it omits Glazer’s trademark cinematic flourishes that distinguishe the sensual otherworldliness of Under the Skin or his gloriously immersive sci-fi/gangster masterpiece Sexy Beast. There are a couple of contrasting night-vision scenes, almost providing respite from the uniform starkness (one of which is staggeringly beautiful). But I wanted to vomit at the end. I’m sure I’m not alone. A bitter pill we should all swallow.
What I find incredibly brilliant about this film is that the director treats the audience with such respect- so many films spell everything out for the audience, whereas this film is so subtle. It lets us use our imagination to work out the underlying horror. It is truly disturbing and unforgettable.
This film did not scare me, it angered and moved me. The callousness, the worthless self-satisfaction, the ordinary inhumanity, the kind that makes you go from wishing death on an entire people to cheerfully talking about designer clothes with no pause, the attitudes displaye by the characters are something I've seen time and time again in the people around me, some of them even close to me. I live in a viciously and almost culturally racist part of my country, and watching this film made me feel as if someone had finally shone a light on and taken to task the breathless immorality I've seen but never spoken out against in my life. It was cathartic, and heartwrenching.
The cut towards the end of the film has to be one of the most breathtaking time jumps in the history of cinema. The vacuuming of dust and polishing of the museum. That sequence will stay with me forever
what was it about this jump cut that will stay with you? It has stayed with me as well and i’m trying to find the words for it but having trouble!!
I audibly gasped at that edit. The significance was immediate. That this is the only view to the other side of the fence, and it is the mundane preservation of this horrific setting, was so chilling.
Same. I almost felt like becoming sick myself around that sequence. I can't stop thinking about it. This one got me like no other
Having just seen the film, and been to Auschwitz, the cut scenes took me straight back to those rooms in Auschwitz 1. Each room affected people differently, my mate cried at the shoes, the suitcases got me, but.. the scene of the original gas chamber (which is at 🎉the back of Hoss’s house) was where I saw that little trolley that carried the bodies to the furnace. Somebody designed that, somebody drew that on a table, and probably a few times, to get it right. For me it summed up the cold, callousness of the whole extermination system. A very clever film that leaves you questioning many things about it, and why, because when have you ever seen anything before you so barbaric, just being ignored so will-fully ignored., who can come away from that with any answers that make any sense.
Very impactful especially as you only hear the atrocities then the film slams the reality in your face. And if you know history as well; you know exactly how many died from Hungary.
For anyone wondering about the dreamlike, fairytale scenes of the girl hiding food for the prisoners, Jonathan Glazer has spoken about this. The film was shot in natural light and he wanted this to follow through for the entire film. As these were night shots, Glazer used thermal imaging cameras to shoot these scenes. Also, Kermode mentioned whether these scenes were like a 'glimmer of light'. Glazer has corroborated this in interviews.
The girl in the film is based on a real woman who Glazer interviewed during research for the film. At the time he interviewed her he was considering not making the film because he thought it was just too dark and tragic a story. Then after speaking to her and hearing her story of hiding food for the prisoners, she became Glazer's beacon of hope. It makes the thermal imaging shots (where she is a bright shining light amongst darkness) even more powerful. Unfortunately she died before the film was finished, but her courage lives on in this film forever.
Thanks for sharing this. Very helpful explanation.
By the way: my understanding is that the poetry lines, which are superscripted once the Polish girl arrives back home, are texts written by a prisoner, and which she found in a box placed by the prisoner at the spot where the girl usually leaves food. I’m neither sure this interpretation is correct - at least, that’s how I understood it during the film - nor if the texts are authentic, though I suspect they are
I love the symbolism of these sequences. The girl is doing her own form of "gardening," and the use of infrared signals an inversion of the film's moral perspective. If you notice, the mother-in-law also appears in infrared as she shakes out the sheets (presumably to get the smell/ashes out). She then decides to leave overnight.
I don’t know if it was the way it was sequenced, I think the first of these scenes cuts from one of the children sleeping or sleep walking or something. Could be completely wrong but it left the feeling that the kids in the house were subconsciously affected by the things they could hear (and smell)
@@vincentheinis4247 The hidden paper is music composed by a prisoner in Auschwitz who survived the war
I was significantly more disturbed by this than some of the more graphic depictions of mass murder I've seen. Omission is a very powerful tool in cinema. The way it was all kept at a distance caused me to think more deeply about the Holocaust and how people were able to do that than anything I've seen to date. Really simple and really brilliant idea in my opinion. The tight shot of Hoss' face while he's in the camp and the sequence with the flowers will probably haunt me forever.
I think you might have to do it that way. I've been working on a way to write a dramatic script about Sobibor or Treblinka (I'm aware two about the former exist) but it's just kind of impossible to do it straightforwardly in a realistic manner. Noone will want to watch some of the stuff that actually happened.
Agree. Check out The Grand Illusion (1937).
'Omission is a very powerful tool in cinema'.
THIS THIS THIS. Restraint is a massively important quality in a filmmaker, particularly when dealing with difficult, sensitive subject matter. I feel similarly to what you describe above with regards to Lynne Ramsay's marvelous direction and editing decisions in You Were Never Really Here, which I view as some of the very best portrayals of violence, true violence, what violence means to humanity and what it does to a person, ever put to film.
I haven't seen Zone of Interest yet, but looking forward to it.
@@TheDemonicPenguin and it would be very hard to visually recreate. For one thing, there is no safe way for an actor to lose enough weight to look right.
This is why many people say that radio shows in the old days was so powerful. You didn't need to see anything; everything was all in your mind, which made it even more terrifying.
Sometimes a truly great film comes along....this is one of them. This is what cinema can do when its in the hands of supreme film makers.
Honestly want to give more praise to Christian Friedel, who played Höss. Id seen him in a few things, most notably Haneke's The White Ribbon and Babylon Berlin, but knew little about him besides that. Hearing and reading his interviews, and him recounting his experience playing this character (having nightmares, panic attacks, crying when he had to films without Sandra Hüller because they'd given each other emotional support when they were filming together and was now without it) really brought to light just how mentally taxing it must be to have to embody such evil in such a...nonchalant way. To have the weight of history on your shoulders even for a short time, to be intimately aware of the scale of this person's atrocities and still have to play him as a regular man who wants to do well at work and loves his kids... to not be able to make a caricature but play him straight and human is quite the undertaking, and from the way he speaks, and the way others talk about him, he comes across as the sweetest person ever. So now I have yet *another* layer of appreciation for this movie and those involved.
He's also in Jessica Housner's Amour Fou.
Just saw this tonight. The bit at the end where Hoss is looking at the door then it cuts away was absolutely brutal and really forces you to come to terms with what you've been watching for the last 90 minutes. That made me pretty emotional.
Almost a spoiler on the ending, thanks a lot. ;-)
@@Sylv1ception71 I mean, stop reading at “the bit at the end”
“The bit where he looks at the door and then it cuts away” is a spoiler?
It’s hardly a plot twist
There are no spoilers….we all know the horrible ending these innocent people went through. When will man ever stop killing !
I haven't seen the film yet but just that line of dialogue "Is Mrs. Siebelman in there? The one I used to work for?" sent a shiver down my spine and a horrified sensation in the pit of my stomach
That scene really summed up Germany's attitude towards Jewish people at that time for me. Absolutely vicious jealousy, spite and cruelty.
@jeremyhopkins577 Almost like the British medias attitude towards refugees in small boats right now.
Agreed, seen the film and that one brief line really hits home.
I thought it was quite chilling as well, and it shows yet different sides of humanity: greed, oppression, and envy. Mrs Siebelman had a nice house and finery, whereas the character and her daughter (the wife) had barely anything. It's like Paulo Freire said: without transformational education, the oppressed's dream is to become the oppressor.
There is another reference to (presumably the same) Mrs. Silverman, making it clear that "they" were no longer people; just things to be used and exploited.
I finally saw this last night. A remarkable, chilling, harrowing film that makes you question your own indifference and the paths it can lead to. Remarkable.
On the topic of sound, which I agree it fully deserved the Oscar for, if you listen with headphones or good speakers, all of the scenes in and around the house have a low rumble in the background. It is made explicit later what it is (no spoilers, but I think you can guess) and that is just so genius and so effective. This industrial rumble that underscores that Auchwitz was a death factory and even when you are looking at a lovely garden, that rumbling sound never goes away.
The first 60 seconds, which is a blank screen with sound only is genius and brave, alluding to how important sound is to the movie. Such a harrowing film, brilliantly constructed. Sometimes the most frightening things are those that we cannot see.
I got up and contacted the manager thinking the film had broke.
One comment about Mayo's recollections of Rudolf Höss's story. Höss testified in Nuremberg, but then was handed to the Poles. He was tried and executed in Poland in 1947. Apparently, the hanging took place in in the former Auschwitz camp. The Polish equivalent of the Masterpiece Theatre, Teatr Telewizji (TV theatre), produced a play on Höss trial in the late 1970s or early '80s. This is how I was introduced to this figure in my early teens.
It seems appropriate that he returned to Poland to face justice. One thought I had watching the film was how the idea of Poland had been eradicated from their world replaced by 'the East' where the living room was found. Opening on that beautiful lake scene or later canoeing in the river there's no geographical marker or sign where this is situated. The servants in the house are referred to as 'locals', it's another eradication.
Two sequences were highlights to me. The negative sequence of the mother pulling the washing in from the balcony which was almost a Balletic dance looked incredibly strange and the other of the flowers in the garden with the screams in the background. The very flowers themselves seemed to be screaming. So incredibly strange and wonderful at the same time.
There's one shot - a low angle shot of Höss, but inside the camp instead of at the periphery. All of the sound that's been buried in the mix is suddenly brought right to the fore. It's the most disturbing 15 seconds in a film since the 'digestion' scene in Nope.
Done by the same sound designer
then the fade to red and the droning note. stomach churning
I'd say it beats the Nope scene by far.
@mattyjohnsson257 not a competition but yes it does feel even more effective. Nope was more visual so there wasn't much need for us to think, although both still horrifying
Yes and even then the camera is angled upward, away from the camp. Saw the film this week. Stunning achievement
One of the most heartbreaking scenes was when we hear an Auschwitz inmate getting drowned in the river because he was fighting with another inmate over an apple - presumably one of the apples placed by the young Polish girl. So even in her act of kindness, she was indirectly responsible for a gruesome death.
I’m so glad you brought that up.
Reminds me of one of the long since debunked stories of a woman who lied about throwing the apples over daily.
She left more than one apple - she may have directly saved many lives, too.
PS Yes you’re right, it was heartbreaking and disturbing - I think it’s the only time we clearly hear what is being said over the wall (or rather read the subtitles if you’re mono-glottal English like me).
When in the movie does that happen?
This is one of the most unique films I’ve seen. Every horror that you experience in The Zone of Interest you’ve brought into the theater yourself.
wow this is a great analysis
See, I counted this against the film. Because, the film isn't affecting me, my prior knowledge of the Holocaust is. Especially the scene at the end with the modern Auschwitz. I don't give the film credit for the work of the museum.
Wow I love that!
@@Dinglehoppers779 We bring our awareness and preconceptions to any film that deals with well known historical events, and they affect the way that we watch it. That is something that film makers can exploit to great effect, which does not make them less creative. Creating the soundscapes for this film must have been extremely challenging. To make a film that does not rely on the visual image for its most visceral impact, but on a soundtrack of ambient noise that the audience is expected to interpret accurately, played against the counterpoint of what we do see, is a very bold artistic choice - and one that seems to have paid off, from what I've read. In this video I think we see very clearly how thoughtful and intentional the production was throughout - it seems anything but lazy to me.
This film is quite something. I can’t remember a film in which sound has been used to such a soul crushing, devastating effect.
I'd say the score in All Quiet on the Western front did a great job of imposing dread, although this is far more subtle.
The score at the start of the film put me in mind of 2001 a space odyssey
@@cameronearl-dieppedalle893yes
@@moredillinja2870 That’s what I was thinking too. They definitely took a couple cues from that.
Very Kubrick-esque cinematography absolutely stunning. Mica Levi on the sound is magic.
It's a masterpiece, extremely powerful, best film of the year so far, imo. The bits of music throughout the film are frightening. as is the household itself. Not an ordinary household, but a terrifying place.
The 9hr epic film "Shoah", by Claude Lanzmann, is filmed in the present (of the late '70s and early '80s) and never shows a single corpse. Indeed, it goes for some 4hrs, much of it on trains, tracing the paths of the death trains, using terms like "cargo", "load", and other terms that never let on the trains are carrying people who will be expeditiously murdered, before it ever uses the word "victim". And when the word "victim" is finally used, it hits you like a ton of bricks. It has many interviews with camp survivors as well as non-Jews who either worked in the camps or participated in the administrative side of extermination, including those living just outside the boundaries of the camps.
Despite its lack of visual violence, it is a very disturbing film to sit through, with a lasting impact. I've watched the whole thing twice. People can be so dispassionately cruel to each other. Watch that you don't slide down that particular ramp.
Great movie. Easily one of the all-time best documentaries.
@@davidglow3 Look for Chicago Humanities Festival interview with Martin Amis, the author of the book "The Zone of Interest", that the film is based on; a fascinating and disturbing analysis.
It’s a very difficult very long watch but I think it’s the closest you’ll get to understanding what happened from an outside perspective. It’s life changing really.
What makes you think we're dumb enough to slide through that same ramp? Speak for yourself because it sounds like you have doubts about your own self control
@@wisco9er536” Me thinks thou dost protest too much…
Well you're outdone yourselves this time. This is why it's important to see film reviews done by professionals who have an in-depth understanding of both the subject matter and the director's vision. Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's insightful review of "The Zone of Interest" showcases their unparalleled expertise and background knowledge, elevating the viewing experience for their audience. The ability to delve into the nuances of the film's themes, characters, and overall narrative demonstrates a level of analysis that goes beyond surface impressions.
Very true
This is obviously written by AI. I'm confused by all the thumbs up?
@@Tomlongthorp Are you a Trump supporter too? 😂
Crazy phallus riding
@@Tomlongthorppick up a book dude
I'm so glad Mark brought up Son of Saul. I immediately thought these two films compliment each other as a sort of 'inside out' view of the horror.
Yes indeed. That would make a grim double bill but both films are brilliant and unique in their own ways.
No doubt. Zone captures the mundane of the horror for those who run it, and Saul captures the complacency of the horror for those knee deep in the cleanup.
The infrared parts really stuck with me. Most of the movie is filmed with hidden cameras + natural lighting to render it familiar (and all the more disquieting) to western audiences because of our identification with the peace and prosperity of their lives. The shots of the girl hiding food is the one glimpse of humanity we're given, but the infrared photography establishes this unnerving, hostile feel, as if she's being surveilled by a drone or CCTV cameras... It gives these scenes a modern dimension I found incredibly eerie.
That's such an astute observation. I've been struggling for 2 months to articulate why those scenes "felt" so furtive to the viewer. You nailed it. It's because it mimics a sense of surveillance.
I saw Lukasz Zal talking about these infrared sequences, these cameras have low resolution so they used upscaling algorithms to make them fit for the movie but the effect of the process has indeed resulted in so much more than just infrared.
Arguably the greatest film of this century. I’ve seen it twice now and left thinking the same thought:
A film I never want to see again.
A film I need to see again.
I've rewatched it like 3 times 💀
Very true
This is a truly great film. Elements of it are still bubbling up and unsettling me, and I was fortunate enough to see the premiere at the LFF last October. 'A study in looking away' is I think the best description yet. It's so extraordinary it almost transcends cinema.
I reallly like your reviews. You bring heart and empathy to your work which is palpable.
Just watched this. Brutal yet brilliant. The sounds will play on my mind for ages. A modern masterpiece
The film I would most compare the Zone of Interest to is 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is not entertainment, it is a work of pure art and challenges the viewer to look inward to ask profound questions. Glazer is a genius and he has created a towering masterpiece that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
The opening segment is definitely a shout out to 2001. The dark screen/haunting score that represents the monolith. In fact it’s the only part of the film I found derivative and wished Glazer made a different choice, despite how effective it is.
@@joshhart4652that opening reminded me also of Kubrik's A Clockwork Orange
@@RollrightKnights Yes, the full frame colour shots at times, Black, Red, White, also reminded me of the intro to that movie.
That flash forward flash back sequence was superb.
6:51 Small correction: Höss was arrested and hanged at Auschwitz itself, as a kind of symbolic gesture. He was heard at Nuremberg, but his actual trial took place in Poland.
The black and white infrared sequences were of someone (likely the chambermaid or someone in that lower class) that was hiding food among the labor camp tools and work areas so that the Jews didn't starve as much. Those sequences were taking place at night. You even hear about two prisoners that were fighting over one of the apples that was hidden later in the film when the child was drawing and the officer said to drown that prisoner in the river.
Those sequences being done during the bedtime story portions felt like it was meant to illustrate how fairytale-like the act of bravery and goodness was to plant those apples at the risk of being found.
She left apples for all the prisoners, not just Jews. Many non-Jewish Poles died there too. The character is based on a real person - a polish girl who lived near the camp. Glazer interviewed her before shooting the film.
Saw this today and it was absolutely unnerving. The constant drone of unimaginable horror almost filters out after a while before realizing that's exactly what this family has done.
The meeting room scene also left me feeling sick. Casually discussing mass murder but pausing to give apologies for the minutes. The mundanity of pure evil.
Definitely a film to see but you will not leave in much of a talking mood.
This movie made me feel things I didn’t know I could feel. I didn’t think I could feel pain like that….but short of living it…I felt like I was there when I was listening to the film the second I time with headphones on. Holy shit, this movie almost broke me but I’m so thankful in the strangest way. It’s like public service everyone needs to see it.
I read his book/diary, he wrote it while in jail at his trial. I read it to understand their point of view having read as many survivor books and history books as I could get my hands on. At one point he shows some remorse for what he did to the Jews, etc. But not because of the horror of what he did, he was sorry because now that the nazis were defeated he was worried about what vengence the world would take on Germany. He was sorry for himself.
It is a chilling lesson in what can happen so called normal people under certain circumstances. When truth is replaced by fake truth, when certain people for whatever reason are singled out and used as the blame for others problems, and when we create a world where my success needs someone else to fail. Not a million miles away from where we are today, Hoss didnt have horns, fangs and a tail, , most monsters don't. I disagree with Karmode and Mayo slightly, its not enough that the stories continue to be told, telling simply isnt enough. Its crucial that they are listened to and Ithink theres not much listening happening currently.
Extraordinary experience. Horrific. New cinema in many ways. Shocked it’s nominated as much as it is, not because it shouldn’t be but because the Oscar’s rarely acknowledge films this experimental and or this magnificent. This year an exception of course.
I’m assuming the subject matter had a lot to do with it.
Simon looks haunted just discussing the film.
Just saw this last night. Absolute masterpiece, utterly chilling
I just watched this last night. I didn’t get to see in the theater as I didn’t even see it freaking advertised in my area in South Carolina, but instead bought it on Amazon streaming. I was fully captivated by the film. The most disturbing scene in my opinion was the meeting with the crematorium company (Topfs and Sons?) who I had never heard of. I work in the industrial maintenance industry and I occasionally meet with vendors/contractors, and this scene just felt like a business meeting on how to improve the production quality in my plant, and that was unnerving to see these guys sitting there discussing the furnace process. Made me want to throw up.
The jump to the present day as the memorial was being cleaned was also unnerving. I hope this films gets more recognition and more people eventually see.
This is one of those few films that has stuck in my mind since I watched it
Watching you two talk about a film is fantastic sometimes. I need to see this film, great review
“It was much better to imagine men in some smokey room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told the children bed time stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, then what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”
― Terry Pratchett
The ‘storybook’ sequences didn’t feel any more tonally dissonant than the tableau of garden flowers accompanied by sounds of agony. They also made logical sense within the narrative. We overhear in the final third of the film an SS man informing Hoss that two prisoners were fighting over an apple - presumably one planted by their tools overnight by the girl to keep them alive - this is when the children hear their father order an execution on the spot. We also see the girl returning home carrying a poem by another prisoner, left for her to find in exchange for the life giving fruit. The poem is about hope, and she plays the piano as it is recited. These sections are explicitly about hope in the darkness, even when the acts of kindness themselves trigger yet more horror.
Damn, how did u know it was their father giving the order to execute? I understand he's the commander but I didn't think he'd be the only person with such power. It makes sense though, just surprised u got that
A character says "herr Kommendant" when talking to the person ordering the execution. Höss was the Kommendant of the camp at that time. @@wisco9er536
@@wisco9er536 It's audible in the soundtrack during the sequence of the young boy playing alone in his room.
@journeyman2682 no I know that, I heard the voice outside too. I just didn't know that was the father specifically giving the order- or more importantly the son watching his father order an execution
@@wisco9er536 Ah, I can't recall the exact dialogue, but I think Hoess is addressed 'Commandant' by one of his officers who explains what the disturbance is and we then hear him ordering the murder.
I saw a preview of this exactly a week ago, genuinely one of the few films that really shook me to the very core, it’s uncomfortable, chilling, haunting and really makes you feel quite scared by not what you see but what you hear, a really fantastically well directed film with striking cinematography and solid acting, another fine piece of work by Jonathan Glazer once again, probably his best film to date.
@@LegPuppy I need to rewatch Under the Skin since it’s been a while but I did really dig that one.
The scenes that I found shocking was the ashes dumped into the river and Hedwig trying on the fur coat.
I have not been able to stop thinking about this movie since I saw it 3 weeks ago. Absolutely chilling, yet wonderfully executed. Just a masterful piece of art. Even though the steel cold, detached, systematic rationale behind the slaughtering of millions of humans feels uniquely Nazi, this film is certainly relevant today. How far are we willing to go to ignore the suffering of others to protect our own interests.
Lot of people will watch this movie at home with the sound coming from their TVs and laptops. It won’t be the same. Also, for me this movie is like a Time Machine, where we go back in time, we know what happened but will keep ourselves at the comfortable distance, not even daring to peak inside. Movies like this are needed.
Yes it's definitely one to watch at the cinema if possible. I had to travel a bit to find it, local multiplex hasn't carried it which is a shame.
I was told that the 'flashback' sequences are actually shot on infrared and supposedly depict the true story of a local girl leaving food for the prisoners.
The actress who portrays her wears her dress, rides her bicycle and plays piano in her house. She was 90 years old when Glazer met her and passed away a short while later. An incredible person. He stated that she was like the light in the darkness that allowed him to get through making this film. Which ties into the way she's shot in infrared quite beautifully despite that developing as a matter of necessity because they couldn't think of any way to light her in that situation.
Wasn't she one of the daughters?
@@anthonymartensen3164 I was a bit confused by this but she was actually an unrelated Polish girl who didn’t live with the Hoss family
@@YogkogOh. I thought she was the one one who said she was providing sugar. Either way, the point is that children don't harbor the hate that the adults have adopted?
her name was Alexandria, she was a member of the Polish resistance. she was 90 was jonathan glazer met her. both the bike and the dress that's used in the film belonged to her (taken from the wiki page). i believe the camera was the FLIR camera, as i saw it noted in the credits.
This is the first time I have really enjoyed Mayo's opinion and insight.
I just keep thinking:
The ending wasn't an epilogue.
The film doesn't show us the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum (a testament to the Nazis failure to erase the Jewish people).
It shows Höss.
Höss stops, and retches, and looks, and sees.
As if the enormity of his crime is reaching back out through time, clawing at him, body and soul.
He stops, and retches, and looks, and sees.
He straightens.
He descends the stairs into darkness, and cements his place Hell.
That's a powerful reading. At the time of watching I didn't get that it suggests he consciously understands the scale of his crime. I thought about the shot of the peephole in the door as representing the 'lens of history'. If we do have Hoess's point of view in that shot we can't make out what's happening in the peephole, but even still his body retches. Unless he shares the vision of the present day that the filmmaker gives us as he zooms in. Another thing from this movie to think about.
Uhh nope, did you even watch the film? He had IBS
"Tonight you will take the first step along a dark road from which there is no turning back. You will have to go on and on, from one madness to another, leaving behind you a wilderness of misery and hatred. And still you will have to go on, because you will find no horizon and see no dawn, until at last you are lost and destroyed.
You are doomed, Captain of Murderers."
very striking movie. i felt bad listening to music on my bike ride home after and decided to go in silence
Relatable
The “storybook sequences” were inspired by a woman named Alexandria, who Glazer met while researching the film. She described to him how, as a 12 year old, she used to cycle into the camp at night and plant apples for the starving prisoners. The dress the actress wears in those scenes, and the bike she is riding, really belonged to Alexandria and were used at that time.
It’s one of the few films that I’ve watched in the cinema that I felt physically sick whilst watching
Ditto. I felt like I'd been poisoned. Just completely wrong on a physical level. The sequence with the flowers and screams in the distance where the screen eventually saturated with red made me feel like I was gonna throw up.
I thought it was utterly superb. It made it's way into my top 10 of the year quite comfortably- if the Oscars have any sense then it will win for sound, it is a horrifying soundscape. It had that slow cinema element without being three hours long. It felt like a version of Jeanne Dielman 23 Quay du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles in a more compact, privileged way- not quite as epic, but using that same sort of typicity. The idea Mark talked about of looking at it from the side is the right one I think- there are so many images in this film about a family who are so brilliant at ignoring their position and turning a blind eye to the point of being emotionally hollowed out- the dull bits aren't dull, they're intriguing, and sort of creepy. I think the ending of it was slightly meshed, a little rushed and the storybook sequences felt strange, but there felt to me a fairy tale imagining of what might be on the other side in a nice juxtaposing way. Really strong work, an understated but regimented style, and I love films that reward you for paying attention.
Saw it today, the projectionist ballsed it up and the subtitles were missing. It took us, the 10 or so people who were there, about 20 minutes to realise. I know! So we had to watch the first 20 minutes a second time, after we all copped on. An experience.
Well, I have not seen this, but it's rare to see both Mark and Simon reacting in this way - in such a physical manner - to a film and it is difficult not to get a sense of the impact it has. The desire to analyse is strong when faced with such horror - to try and contain or understand how anything so awful can happen. If we attempt to understand Höss, we can view this through the analytic concept of the conscious (his home) and unconscious (the death camp). The psychological distance between the two buildings-the home (conscious) and the camp (unconscious)-mirrors the compartmentalisation within Höss's psyche, a mechanism that allows him to live with himself. This metaphorical reading of the buildings aligns with the psychoanalytic theory of the mind as a battleground of conflicting impulses, desires, and ethical considerations. The juxtaposition serves as a stark reminder of the capacity for human beings to normalise or hide from their darkest impulses, compartmentalising their lives to such an extent that they can function within one realm (the domestic) while causing immense suffering in another (the professional or ideological).
"The Zone of Interest," through its portrayal of these two contrasting spaces, invites viewers to reflect on the depths of human denial, the capacity for evil, and the psychological mechanisms that allow individuals to live with themselves despite committing or being complicit in heinous acts. It underscores the importance of confronting the uncomfortable truths of history and the human psyche, challenging the audience to consider the ways in which individuals, and societies at large, compartmentalise and justify their actions.
This is serious film-making.
You can tell what attracted glazer to the film and location becuase of how this house is the perfect metaphor for planet earth. Life and death happening at once. Heaven and hell happening at once. The garden of Eden and gates of hell next door to each other. A greenhouse on one side of wall that promotes growth of life while another building across the wall promotes death and carnage . The sounds of birds chirping clashing with sounds of screaming and crying, images of children playing while children being separated on other side of wall. Look at the flowers look at your man made pool, play with the dog. What’s that over the wall? Nothing… why do you care? It’s their fault not yours according to your family. Sorry to be so graphic but glazer just puts it all out there. People always ask how people sit around all day and not doing anything to stop atrocities … this family was RIGHT NEXT DOOR FOR A LONG TIME and their mind did not change… will we?
I think we will. So many pessimistic people in the comment section talking about how we can be just like them. How can people be so hopeless
Also the flowers are literally fed with the ashes of the murdered.
Horror upon horror upon horror.
I suggest to you to read some or any of Primo Levi's books @@goodphoton
Whenever the camp was in view, I kept looking over the wall and up at the windows, imagining the suffering and thinking I might see a human being.
thank you so much for saying *Indifference*
'banality of evil' doesn't cut it.
Amazing 👏 nothing like it in years.
Jonathan Glazer is such a great and versatile director. "Sexy Beast" is absolute classic I'll never get bored of.
love the discussion here
Has taken its place next to Come and See as the scariest film I've ever seen
That’s a high bar for sure. Haven’t seen The Zone of Interest yet, but Come and See disturbed me to my core, beyond anything else I’ve ever seen on celluloid
@francesmcgonigle1435 Come and See horrifies by what it shows, The Zone of Interest by what it doesn't
Saw this film yesterday, I was very moved by it.
The "dream sequences", I didn't feel were dream sequences, they were explained after second one transitions into colour indoors as being one of the servants in the house going in and out at night hiding apples where the jewish prisoners would find them during the day. The girl/woman doing this is shown as positive light against the blackness. Later in the film we heard in the background audio that a prisoner is being reprimanded and executed because of "fighting over apples" thus the irony is that the good act led to the death of somebody as well.
Another detail I found very ironic is that Hedwig walks with a noticeable limp which is at odds with her status of perfect Ayrian mother. Other disabled people during the regime would have been on the other side of the wall. And the juxtaposition of the youngest boy playing with his toy soldiers whilst you can hear what's going on next door.
The ending is discombobulating and indeed it should be. You wait for justice to be served during the span of the film - which it isn't - so it's important we are shown the flash forward to how Höss's actions will be seen by history.
It's a remarkable film, I will be urging my friends to go and see it.
Mark. This was just beautiful and perfectly worded
And your experience of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial . Echoes. I almost had a panic attack in the middle. But then could get out
They used naturalistic lighting for the film and the exterior night time scenes of a girl leaving food out for the prisoners was shot like that (x-Ray/inverted) because there was no lighting to light those scenes. It’s also a negative image. We see the film in positive, traditionally lit etc. this shows the evil of those surrounded by the atrocities and then the negative footage is the positive side, people doing good. It’s an interesting visual juxtaposition.
I love the choice as it really implements Glazer surrealist style and acts as a through line through his filmography and career in adverts and music videos. I saw him talk at London film festival after the film and also tonight at BFI Southbank, he’s such a fascinating artist and my favourite of modern cinema.
At the end I realised my hands were glued to my legs and had been for ages. The sound design is something else. More than stays with you. I've seen the trailer since before another film and even the trailer was unsettling after experienceing the whole film. Really incredible film.
Ten (ish) years ago I watched Under the Skin which stayed with me for weeks. The scene where the two captive naked men are in the black liquid (?) environment, one reaches out to touch the other and they both instantly implode. The suggestion here for me was the 'Alien(s)' saying "Your humanity is not welcome here". And here I am again all these years later after watching The Zone of Interest, haunted all over again by what I watched and heard in the cinema. It's a masterpiece, it should be required viewing for everyone.
Incredible film! Thanks for the great review
The " dreamy sequences" is a true story of a 12 years old young polish girl crossing the zone of interest giving food to a victim of the Shoah. They both met after the war.
Simon’s point about the fact that the rest of the family seem to skirt around what he does for a living is bang on, it’s disturbing 😬 great film, not what you expect but grips you from the off 👍 the sounds from afar really bring it home.
Incredible film. I couldn't tear my eyes away from it. The chilling soundscape and the 'musical' additions providing some kind of linked connection of industrial and horror made my hair stand on end. Incredibly well acted throughout and tightly shot. The cut at the end to the museum was a jarring, face slap of a scene. Where the mundane nature of what was happening lay parallel to the mundane nature of the household. I was left deeply affected and still can't stop thinking about it.
While the dreamlike sequences may be stylistically odd, their purpose is obvious. This is a Polish production. The Poles have always strictly refuted any collaboration with the Nazis. These scenes are meant to make clear that the housemaids are not collaborators. Also, later in the film there's a scene where off screen, just in sound, we witness prisoners being shot because of a fight over one of the hidden apples. Incredible that Sandra Hüller didn't get an Oscar nomination.
The part that got me most was when Hedwig's mother left without a word, as if escaping. Hedwig couldn't quite believe she had really gone. She left a note for her daughter, who for a moment faced the cruelty and horror of her life as if in a mirror. Then chose to look away again, and dispose of the note in the kitchen stove fires. The most chilling film I've seen for some time. A masterpiece that translates the past as the present and thus resonates even more due to the genocide taking place in Gaza today. That's why the creators made those speeches at the BAFTAs and Oscars and I applaud them and everyone involved in the film for the courage to speak out.
You likely won't ever forget this film. I think it's remarkable for many reasons. As they both said, the disinterestedness, the deflecting of what's happening over the other side of the wall is very powerful. It leaves the audience in constant unresolved tension, which for me cycled through injustice to anger, desperation, hopelessness and then pure terror. It captures that coldness brilliantly when the characters for a brief moment allow the actions of the camp to enter the forefront of their attention. It is unsettling to be left looking for the human story with such cruel people. Although it is a beyond vile subject matter it's really great to see film techniques being used to remind us that it is an expressive artform. The music, screen colours, thermal imaging & references to the 'historical real world' we know outside later in our time. The ending really struck me and brilliantly reinforced the horrific coldness that this actually happened. Well done to all involved.
Saw it today. A masterpiece.
Being a huge, huge, huge fan of Under The Skin I've been waiting so long for a new film from Glazer. Coming out of this one I was disappointed, but it has haunted me to a degree I'm not sure anything has. I feel sick, both physically and in my mind, when I think about it.
The one thing that sticks with me is Hedwig waking up to find her mother had gone in the night. Think about that for a moment, and what it would take for your own mother to leave and be unable to even face you to say goodbye.. chilling.
Hopefully the recognition this film has achieved by being nominated for Oscars gets people to check out Glazer's other films. He is a truly genius filmmaker.
a truly amazing piece of art
Just been to the cinema to see 'Zone of interest', the latest film by the brilliant Jonathan Glazer, whose Under the skin was my favourite film of 2013.
Telling the story of Höss, kommandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, and the idyllic life he has with his children and horses in the house built next to the death camp. Much of the film concerns banal incidents, his socially ambitious wife showing guests around her house while Polish servants scurry out of her way.
What is extraordinary however is the sound design of the film. Below the everyday chit chat are a low, endless and menacing drone, with screams, guard dogs, gun fire, trains arriving, yells in German a constant background of unspeakable horror.
Höss comes across in the film like he came across in the book he wrote waiting for the hangman: caring for his own children while murdering other people's children daily in their thousands, uncaring and aloof...in his book he slags off all his fellow SS, doing them no favours in their upcoming trials.
And extraordinary experience, one that echoes Hannah Arendt's description of Eichmann: the banality of evil.
I saw the preview today in the cinema and didn’t know exactly what it was about. I only gathered that it was set in nazi germany. Now that I found out what it is about , I I will definitely watch it. Its such an interesting take to show (in the extreme) how my ancestors looked the other wa. I always found that so interesting. How normal people did this. It was a slow process but in the end almost every one looked the other way.
Bracing myself to watch this film.
I know what you mean. I'm not sure I have the courage.
I’ve got tickets to see this, but I am feeling pretty scared about it. I know it is essential viewing, but heck, I’m worried.
I think knowing what it's about lessens the dread. You'll be okay.
I appreciate your passion for film! Great video!
Some key moments - the musical “jolts” (designed to wake us up from our complacency in what is happening ?), the girl leaving apples for the prisoners to eat (the light of the world?), and Herr Höss vomiting (the nature of his work catching up with him?).
Cinema has a horrible habit of portraying Nazis as monstrous caricatures of ‘evil’. It’s so much more potent and meaningful when a film such as this forces us to sit with the truth: that they were just people who were convinced to do horrific things.
In the wider context, it is also worth watching the BBC/HBO 2001 "Conspiracy", which focusses solely on the Wannsee Conference meeting of 1942, with Branagh, Tucci, Firth et al playing the main characters. As chilling (in its own way) in setting the scene (with similar scenes of detachment) for what was to follow at Auschwitz and the other camps.
I felt the thermal camera sequences were brilliant. To me, they played a dual role - at first they represent the dream of the sleepwalking daughter. She says she is "handing out sugar" in her subconscious state. The fairy tale illustrates her childlike capacity for fantasy - the impossibility of providing charity from her position, paired with the story of a magical swan giving passage across an impassable river. Clearly there is that impulse still within her to empathize with the camp's victims, however repressed. It is later revealed that the sequences are not a dream, but the actual heroic deeds of another young girl from the nearby town.
This film says a lot about the reality of children brought up in these circumstances. From the incessantly crying baby, almost revolting at the constant oppressive noise from the camp, to the oldest son who imagines putting his own brother into a gas chamber, we are shown each step along the progression of learned evil. Yet through the dream sequences it is shown that compassion and heroism are not completely wiped out, no matter how suppressed. Perhaps the question remaining is - how sufficient is that goodness in the face of such insurmountable evil?
Really great discussion
I thinks it’s a masterpiece and the visceral soundscape was very potent
Someone needs to show this review to Ben Shapiro - who was apparently confused by the fact that a film about the Holocaust didn't have any Jewish people in it.
Spot on!
The "fairy tale"/"story book" sequences were just shot in infrared, I assume because Glazer wanted to avoid any artifice so he didn't shoot day for night or setup lights to be able to capture the actors with regular cameras. I also think it helped sell the audience that the hiding of the food is something that could only be done in the dead of night otherwise they would get caught.
Back from repeat screening, (I wanted to see it without the visceral internal screaming tension I felt first time), and it lost not an iota of its power on second viewing. Mark K's assessment as a "study of looking away" rings true. Remarkable film in every way.
The "fairy tale" sequences struck me as a Dogme 95 rule. No artificial light, therefore the night sequences of a local girl planting apples for prisoners was filmed in night vision. Yes gave a dream like otherness to the film but think it kept true to the, no artificial light or music manifesto of the picture x
Best film in many a year, stunning, scary and jaw dropping
Brilliant film. Not really about 'The Holocaust' IMHO, more about the human capacity to ignore the suffering of others, especially if their suffering benefits our lives. An allegory of current global economics.
Just saw this movie yesterday and already want to see it again and maybe even a 3rd time
I am certain that this is the best movie I've seen in the past couple of years
What are your other faves from recent years
the interlude score is etched into my brain permanently. i keep humming it ever since leaving the theater and i just need to listen to it again once the score is officially out
Literally bought the movie today just so I can listen to the score
It's a brilliant film. One of the small details I thought was very powerful but easily missed is when Hedwig discards the note left by her mother (presumably articulating her inability to cope with the atrocities taking place over the fence) in what appears to be a coal burner/oven in the kitchen.
So glad I caught a screening of Zone of Interest. It’s so starkly effective. Funnily enough just watched Band of Brothers for the first time, with its shattering encore as they liberate Kaufering IV. This is its diametric flip. It absolutely captures Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’. By definition it relies on extremely clever sound design - if it doesn’t win every award going for this it will be a traversty. Mika Levi’s orchestration is superbly evocative too. Oddly in places this reminded me of “the greatest film ever made” ‘Jeanne Dielman’. ZOI creates a mounting unease: the rumbling din of death juxtaposed with the quotidian life of repetitious Dielman-esque chores and family picnics. We instinctively hate the family but at the same time it is filmed with no facial close-ups (that I recall) and Glazer keeps us at a stubbornly dispassionate distance. In Anatomy of Fall we feel so intimately connected to Sandra Huller - here we barely recognise here, or get to engage except on a level of visceral but detached contempt. It’s fascinating as it omits Glazer’s trademark cinematic flourishes that distinguishe the sensual otherworldliness of Under the Skin or his gloriously immersive sci-fi/gangster masterpiece Sexy Beast. There are a couple of contrasting night-vision scenes, almost providing respite from the uniform starkness (one of which is staggeringly beautiful). But I wanted to vomit at the end. I’m sure I’m not alone. A bitter pill we should all swallow.
What I find incredibly brilliant about this film is that the director treats the audience with such respect- so many films spell everything out for the audience, whereas this film is so subtle. It lets us use our imagination to work out the underlying horror. It is truly disturbing and unforgettable.