The Zone of Interest (2023)

PG-13 and I kind of get why.  Despite being about genocide and real world horror, the entire conceit is that you see none of it.  You hear it.  Especially if you have the subtitles on, you can pick up on things that are atrocities.  But you don't see almost anything.  At one point, the kommendant has sex with one of the prisoners, but it is off-camera and implied more than anything else.  

DIRECTOR:  Jonathan Glazer

Thank goodness I looked up that this was the Under the Skin guy, because that completely scans for the entire movie.  The thing is, I have to take avante-garde on a case-by-case basis.  That seems like a really obvious thing to say.  I mean, I take every other film on a case-by-case basis.  Why wouldn't I do the same thing with the avante-garde?  Part of that is that it is almost a bit of blasphemy to slander, libel, or even criticize something that is considered artistic.  In some cases, I get it.  After all, me criticizing something that is artistic may be simply because I'm a big dumb-dumb. I know that's not the case with Zone of Interest.  I completely get Zone of Interest.  I just find myself...fatigued at times?

The issue that I have is that I really like the concept behind the film.  For those not in the know, The Zone of Interest is almost lacking a story intentionally.  It is about the life of the kommendant of a concentration camp.  Like a rectory borders a chruch, the home of this kommendant is directly adjacent to the concentration camp that he runs.  It is a film about juxtaposition and what is not seen.  We live in a world where we have viewed the Holocaust narrative so many times that we are almost dulled to the pain of these people.  One of the sequences in Zone of Interest is actually the cleaning of the Auschwitz museum and the atrocities that happened there.  The cleaners, all doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, are cleaning things and displays that remind us that an unfathomable amount of people died and they are unemotional because this is their daily lives.  The purpose of The Zone of Interest is to show us the the things we never see.  In the case of this specific story, we see what it was like to be German during this time.  It is a story of a willful ignorance to the crimes that humanity perpetrates on a daily basis for the sake of comfort and self-righteousness.

The Zone of Interest isn't bad.  It's delivering exactly what it promised.  I'd even go as far as to say it delivers a little more.  We get some visual choices that make us question what it must be like to be part of the few who empathize with those behind the walls.  Those parts are actually my favorite parts of the movie.  Now, when I was in college, I remember having to argue that role of the director was to serve the plot.  I argued against someone who was adamant that character preceeded plot every time.  Over time, I tended to lean to my friend's perspective. Character was fundamental to storytelling. Lots of stories without plot completely work.  In the case of The Zone of Interest, I'm not quite sure that we get either. We get hints of character. Hedwig gets a lot of attention in this story and I know her needs.  She wants to create the nicest home for her family.  She wants success so that she is respected.  But Hedwig, despite being the most defined character in the film, is almost an NPC in this story. 

The story never follows Hedwig's goals.  We don't know much about her character except for the fact that she stands still as a character.  The Hedwig from the beginning of the movie is the same as the Hedwig from the end of the movie.  Now, because this is an avante-garde story that is not about plot or character, we're allowed to forgive that she doesn't go through a major change.  After all, lots of film movements aren't about learning something from the events of the piece.  Considering that this is a movie set during World War II in German, it would actually be a little bit inapprorpiate for Hedwig to come to some grand realization about the role that the Nazis had over the Jewish people. We have a little bit of that from Hedwig's other, but it really isn't about the Germans' changes.  If anything, Hedwig's mother is more put-off by the execution of the Jewish people, not morally righteous about the whole thing.

If anything, this is a movie about mood and tone.  Like with Under the Skin, Glazer absolutely crushes with that.  He gives this sense of ominousness to the whole film.  When the ashes start seeping into the river and there's this backwards "We have to save the children" moment, it's incredibly upsetting.  But it isn't necessarily about story.  I'm really bummed to say that, effective as the film is about bringing about an emotional response, I found myself constantly staring at my watch.  I had gleaned what I could from it. The one thing I didn't want was to grow bored with it and I'm ashamed to say...I did.  I should have been riveted with something like this.  It's beautifully made.  But I don't know if it is an-hour-and-forty-five minutes beautifully made.

Maybe that's the last criticism that the movie has for me.  As much as I care about the events, I clearly don't have the fortitude to keep hearing about it.  It sounds like this is a criticism of the film, but it is more about me and people like me.  We can get insensed for only so long before we're bored enough to move onto the next tragedy.  It's sick and I get it. I started off the movie straight up mad at the extended moment of silence and the film ends the same way.  It's a test.  I don't love to be tested, but it was a test that I failed.  My blessed life couldn't handle a little bit of discomfort and that's how I reacted.  It's a well-made test, but I still needed something to latch onto besides the subconscious idea of sadness.

Also, Cinefix?  Hot take making this the best movie of 2023.