The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, December 8th, 2023) Movie • Page 5

Didn’t expect to open this thread to read about Titusville. My grandparents moved there in 196…2?…so grandpa could work as a subcontractor at NASA. Grandma still lives in that house.

This opened here this weekend, so hoping to make it tomorrow.

 

I was really thinking earlier this morning about how someone needs to check on the people in charge of mixing the sound for this and that I hope they were generously compensated

 

same, my grandfather worked construction on Canaveral. him and my grandma passed away last year but my father still lives there when he isn't on a jobsite

 

My grandfather also passed last year. After working on Apollo, he went and worked at the FP&L plant they tore down when we were kids along the river.

 

Not similar at all but I felt nauseous basically from the jump until the ending and felt about as hollowed out by then as well

 

10 EASTER EGGS IN AUSCHWITZ

 

Man, I’m sitting in my car trying to figure out how to even think about this movie. The sound design is a work of brilliance.

 

just watched this yesterday, pretty good.

 

Saw it last night and can't get the red screen/flower part out of my head.

 

I am at a theater I've never been to before, the theater is empty, and the seats recline. I hope I make it the whole time.

 

Good luck. I'll be honest, I had to fight sleep during parts of the second half.

 

When they gave the grandma the tour I thought no way is that pool for swimming because it is too small and then they had about twenty kids in there later. We are thinking about buying a house but I really want to stay in the apartment because of pool access.

 

In a film full of breathtaking images and choices, it gets it right from the very beginning: the shot of the house facing away from the camps, where the boat is given as a present, could be any idyllic family home, only to reverse shot and show us the reality beyond the wall.

You can add any allusion you want. Wealthy gated communities a block away from homeless encampments, Israel launching the Rafah raid while Americans are watching the Super Bowl. To see this movie I had to drive past the worlds' largest McDonald's while my country debates between re-electing a President aiding in genocide or bringing back the guy who thinks we aren't doing enough damage already. The wall is closer than we like to admit. Picking through the Jewish clothes isn't that different than getting it cheaply through sweatshop labor.

 

There is a scene where the family is talking about how beautiful something is and then immediately cuts to a shot of the commander in the camps, surrounded by screams and smoke and gunfire. It was pretty obvious that the next shot was going to juxtapose the beauty and rub our noses in it, but the upward facing shot is so moving because it suggests how easy it is to look away, both literally and figuratively.

The museum shot is so damning to the audience. I've been to things like the Holocaust and 9/11 museums and I've read the little plaques, but what did I or anyone there actually do? If the goal of memorializing the past is to avoid having a repeat in our future, we have certainly failed.

While the real Hoss was eventually captured and executed, it is much more effective here that we leave him at his personal career high. The scumbags don't always get their comeuppance like a Hollywood ending, and even so a trial and quick execution could never compare to what he was personally responsible for.

 

Not sure if it's memorializing the past, but the Germans goal was to eliminate the Jewish race. If anything, I think their actions that led to these museums goes to show they achieved the complete opposite goal. Their legacy will remain forever.

 

The point is that these museums and memorials do not end up moving the audience enough into taking action. The Gaza situation is a perfect example; here is a group of people only removed a generation or two from being the victims of the Holocaust while simultaneously seeking to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians to create their own extended living space. We are not learning from our behavior; Fukuyama's end of history never came true.

 

I understand this point in real life, but if this is what Glazer is trying to convey in the film then I think he fails.

 

I don't think Glazer's point would be as referential as @Morrissey is conveying in that example
but overall think I disagree that he fails at the first part...

this is pretty much the broadest stroke the film conveys in that sequence, and essentially as well. I can elaborate more, but I'm more curious as to why you think he fails here

 

I didn't say Glazer failed at anything. It is society that is failing.

 

No I did. I just wasn’t sure about the interpretation is all.

 

Obviously Gaza was not on Glazer's mind when he was making the film, but the film shows how we can be purposely ignorant of evil and brutality. The film is both about a specific moment and time and the universal nature of evil and the ways in which evil succeeds because of the willingness of so many to sit idly by. The grandmother decides to leave because she does not like what she sees, but did she actually do anything? Can an individual really do anything? We are all culpable in the exploitation and brutality of the world.

 

Everyone who has ever recommended The Boy in the Striped Pajamas needs to be forced to watch this Clockwork Orange-style.