Glazer’s The Zone of Interest enjoys popular acclaim throughout the year in contemporary culture. The musical Harmony, by Barry Manilow about Jewish Nazi-era barbershop artists, has just finished its run on Broadway. Concurrently, on the west coast of the U.S., The Zone of Interest, a film directed and written by Jonathan Glazer, has received five Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture, which will be announced at the upcoming Academy Awards on Sunday.
In its initial week of release in Germany, the reception to this Auschwitz drama crafted by the British filmmaker has been mixed in the country where the Holocaust first began. Even though the film had mostly received enthusiastic reviews in the English-speaking world, German reviewers had a more lukewarm reaction, as did audience members whom The Irish Times spoke with following two showings in Berlin earlier this week.
The critical point of difference revolves around the perception of The Zone of Interest: it’s either considered a revolutionary reflection on the commonplace nature of evil or seen as a cautionary warning on the perils of mediocrity in film-making.
The naturalistic methodology of Glazer implies that not all viewers will grasp important parts of expository conversation. Those who follow Glazer’s screenplay may gain more insight than those who view the film without subtitles.
The film, inspired by a 2014 novel by Martin Amis and focussing on Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his family, maintains its English-language title in Germany, rather than resorting to the Nazis’ original euphemistic term for the areas surrounding the death camps in Nazi-occupied Poland, “Interessengebiet”.
The title decision serves as a poignant reminder. Despite Glazer’s impressive technical accomplishments, the result remains an objective, detached and observational effort from an English filmmaker.
Two subtly different versions of the film are being screened in Germany, one version with English subtitles and the other without. This variety in presentation is due to Glazer’s naturalistic technique where not all audience might grasp key dialogues without the help of subtitles.
Die Zeit weekly’s review was notably positive, praising Glazer’s application of our attention onto the Höss side of the camp wall, while continuously introducing sounds of industrialised death. It stated that the film is a unique take on the Holocaust that has never been experienced before.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine daily lauded Glazer’s precise cinematography until it proposed that multiple night-time scenes made The Zone of Interest just another Holocaust movie. A critique service for the industry, Filmdienst, held that the director was equally fixated with the garden he architected for his protagonist, Hedwig Höss. Despite the film’s meticulous design elements, it stressed that the movie was unable to move past the initially established outrage of normality.
Tageszeitung, a staunch left-wing daily, accused Glazer of resorting to misdirection, employing the aesthetics seen in a Wes Anderson film combined with the Wizard of Oz’s Technicolor, masking his obvious cinematic proclamation: that Nazis were regular individuals with an incredible capacity for brutality.
Sandra Hüller, the actor promoting the film, pointed out the dissimilar line of questioning she faced from English-speaking and German journalists. The former concentrated on more technical aspects of the film’s production, while the latter frequently expressed discomfort about the degree to which the movie humanised its central characters.
Tageszeitung maintained that neither the humanization of Nazis nor the exceptional violence they unleashed was the primary scandal of the Nazi era. The greater scandal was the acceptance and support for this horror by a significant number of Germans. This aspect is not tackled by The Zone of Interest, which it suspects, contributes to the film’s popularity.
Sharing her experience with Vogue Germany, Hüller pointed out the delicacy and peril in discussing these matters in Germany, an opinion that resonates with The Irish Times’s informal audience survey. Dubliner Brian felt the viewing experience of the film was significantly more intense in Berlin than back home. He claimed that despite knowing what the film entailed, most viewers remained until the end credits, leaving the theatre still packed.
Jonathan Glazer, in several interviews, has expressed that this film is aimed at the present rather than a representation of the past, a sentiment shared by some of the local audience.
Tom, a designer of Irish-German descent, with roots in Dublin but now residing in Berlin, expressed satisfaction with the film’s approach to interpreting the Holocaust. He claimed the film dexterously transformed it into a contemplation on social stratification and opportunities during a time of war, using the Holocaust as a function to emphasize the economic accessibility of Russian munition workers to own apartments in Moscow. He claimed it was a method that resonated well with him.
However, the film’s approach stirred a mixed reaction among German viewers. Some German viewers, in conversation with The Irish Times, expressed a sense of confusion about the film’s director, Glazer’s intentions, as well as the structure of his narrative. There was a perceived absence of the director himself in the film’s production which Georg, a viewer, felt as deceptive and inadequate. He believed that while Glazer seemed to distance himself from his creation, his influence was pervasive throughout, with virtually nothing substantial being communicated.
Birgit reflected a different concern regarding the film’s content. Her main point revolved around how the narrative was interpreted, less about Glazer’s message and more about the intended audience. With a background from Eastern Germany, she compared the buzz surrounding the film to that of The Lives of Others, a German film produced in 2006 that received international acclaim, even winning an Oscar for the best foreign picture. Despite its global recognition, the film was subject to mockery locally for its oversimplified depiction of Stasi figures.
The enormity of Nazi Germany’s mass genocide was propelled by a small group but facilitated and accomplished by a large number of people. Although this might seem self-evident, the journey to acceptance has been arduous and continually challenged.
Glazer hoped audiences would be able to empathise with those who perpetrated these acts. Yet, it remains uncertain whether the film made the Höss family personable or simply distant, estranged Nazis from a Hitler-dominated planet.
The issue of Nazis being a part of numerous domestic lineages in Germany is not hypothetical. Much of the recent remembrance work has been about transitioning from seeing National Socialists less as ‘them’ and more as ‘us’. Sadly, not every moviegoer in Berlin who spoke with The Irish Times believed the film communicated this perspective effectively.
Benjamin, an American-Jewish photographer residing in Berlin, shared his critique on the lack of depth in the protagonists, suggesting that it allowed spectators to simply disengage and develop repulsion towards the characters. He proposed that injecting some humaneness and even a tint of humour could have stirred unease amongst the viewers. Surrounded by three Germans munching their way into the night, he offered his thoughts.
The renowned award ceremony, The Oscars, is scheduled for Sunday, March 10th, taking place in Hollywood.
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