This is very well put! I was pleased to see Glazer win the Oscar last night.

Absolutely. And one of the most powerful for me. I just went to see it for the second time and I'm not sure I've ever been more moved and disturbed by a film.

@@jeremyhopkins577 how does it read on a second viewing? I was thinking about seeing it again (especially before it leaves theaters), but it was also a miracle that I got myself in there to see it in the first place. I've actively avoided movies about this topic, but this one seemed too brilliant to miss.

@@madamebouge1236 It's better on a rewatch. I observed and understood a great deal more having been through it once and left with a lot to ponder. I admired its structure a lot the second time. It's a well told story despite how little really goes on. Somehow on my first viewing I didn't notice the plume of ashes drifting down the river.

Absolutely agree! Yet to watch, but trying to bring myself to watch it. Feel like I’ll be a wreck after watching it.

Absolutely! It is especially relevant to today with the rise of Christian Nationalism and fascism!

Thank you! And very well said!

THE ZONE OF INTEREST movie. Here are my thoughts after just watching "The Zone of Interest" and coming home. I had heard about the movie and watched many reviews. I had even heard about what the director said and felt he just demonized Jews while making a movie about the Holocaust and thus proves he is an ignorant fool. But I figured I must see this movie as it isn't maybe even about the family and more about the culture. So I went to see it. I was pleasantly surprised for the following points: 1) The father is damned. How? He stands to process the Jews from the train and thus is doing the work on the days that matter for a death camp called Bergen-Belsen & the general concentration camp of Auschwitz. They don't show it, but then the reason must be that they want to show you the idea of not damning him. You saw nothing. The director tipping his hat to his hate, so to speak. 2) The wife is damned. How? She finds a diamond in toothpaste and wants more. Why? Because in the processing there is very little the workers are allowed to take from the Nazi state as all is categorized and documented. Stealing from the Nazi state a diamond is her crime. She wants to do it more as taking toothpaste will not be cared about with the Nazi state and she knows the diamonds are untraceable anyway unless documented by being found by the workers in the camp. 3) The mother-in-law is damned. How? She realizes a woman is suffering (a Jew) who out bid her in an auction and is not worried about her. She shows no caring for her or any of them (Jews). What she hates is the burning of human flesh, the noise, and the proximity of it all to her personally. She never voices a concern for her grandchildren and their safety or upbringing. These are the three main characters and they all are damned. They are Nazis; they should be damned. Do all people who view this movie get this message? No. Some may think only of how they existed in a moment and chose and performed based on the stimuli that affected them. Of course they did. Don't we all? What is the lesson of the holocaust? Let us look at facts in regards to Triblinka and learn the lesson of the holocaust. In 16 months, 68 Germans with the help of 360 Jews slew over 600,000 Jews. The field had some evidence of buildings having been there. Nothing would have been known of the facts of Triblinka had not the Nazi state kept meticulous records of their accomplishments. What is the value of this movie? It does not show anything that would damn them. You only hear of the suffering and killing and know this man is in charge of all of it enough to be promoted to improving efficiency in all Nazi death camps and concentration camps throughout all of Europe and efficient enough to be brought back to the largest and most famous death camp and concentration camp in the history of the whole world: the death camp called Bergen-Belsen & the general concentration camp of Auschwitz. History records that the Nazis in trials after WWII and over the radio in South America while still free abroad after WWII stated aloud "Six (6) million was not enough." This is significant. It means the Nazis did not care about the fourteen (14) million killed in the holocaust. Why should Nazis care about slaying Poles, gypsies, and dissidents in Europe against the Nazi state? The HONOR and the GLORY of the Nazi mindset was in killing the people of Yahweh in large numbers. Americans today are now being asked in universities throughout our great land and through the speeches of the Democratic politicians within the Senate and Congress whether they will be antisemetic or if they support Israel. I find it absolutely amazing that the impetious for this question was Palestinians beheading Jewish babies or male children, burning alive Jewish mothers, and the fucking of Jewish female minors in cars as they drove them to Gaza Strip. It is abhorrent and explains why Yahweh's Holy Bible states upon Palestine being whole it melts in Isaiah 14:28-31 which is a time when Anti-Christ is identified for the whole world to know and this text states "None shall break rank" meaning Anti-Christ will melt inside Palestine whole not long after it is made whole per the text. Yahweh then declares in the Holy Bible He will destroy all nations off the face of the Earth for all nations will have been against Israel per Zechariah 12:3 and Zechariah 12:9. Favorite World War II Movies 1) Amen (2002) #15 2) Life is Beautiful (1998) #25 3) Notorious (1946) #26 4) Schindler's List (1993) #27 5) Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) - Spanish with English caption #30 6) Midway (2019) #31 7) Come and See (1985) - Russian with English caption #38 8) The Sound of Music (1965) #69 9) The Wind Rises (2013) #100 10) Darkest Hour (2017) #104 11) Secrets of War [Oorlogsgeheimen] (2014) - Dutch with English subtitle #119 12) Dunkirk (2017) #162 13) Hacksaw Ridge (2016) #253 14) Saving Private Ryan (1998) #256 15) Grave of the Fireflies (1993) #321 16) The Zone of Interest (2023) 17) The Grey Zone (2001) The Zone of Interest (2023) is not on my top 360 favorite movies, but it was a fascinating look at people living their lives and raising their kids near the most famous death camp and concentration camp: the death camp called Bergen-Belsen & the general concentration camp of Auschwitz. You could believe the trailer that it is just about wanting the best for your kids. How do you like that spin? Listen to the director compare Jews living near Gaza Strip to Rudolf Höss while accepting awards for his movie and you wonder if his mother had her genitals burned by Palestinians, his baby brother's head cut off, or his younger sister raped in the back seat of a car as Palestinians drive her to Gaza Strip for nights of fun at least more than a month, if Jonathan Glazer would change his mind.

And it becomes even more shocking when we stop and realize that the death machine operated continuously for many years. It is still functional (to some extent), in the corridors of power today.

I was left stunned by haunting moments like that!

Very well said. I was looking for my feelings on this and you articulated it.

Or the diamond she was boasting about, having found it in a tube of toothpaste and remarking- “I’m thinking of asking for more toothpaste” - finishing with a chuckle. Or the remark she made to her slave attendant- I could have had my husband spread your ashes. Scary woman!

I appreciate your insight. I agree the wife is more terrifying than the SA officers. She sees how she can benefit by the systemic destruction of a people. Again when her husband tells her about the impending transfer. Her response is to stay without considering his feelings. His response was It never crossed his mind she would not go with him I have to admit I am in the middle of watching. I rented it tonight and had to take a break. It's these subtle scenes that make a huge impact.

This is very well put! The opening really sets the tone!

Thank you for the kind words! I love this assessment of the film!

Well said.

Thank you!

This is a lovely thing for me to read. Thank you!

Yes, I’m also watching everything I can find about this film! I appreciate this commentary.

Ah thank you so much! That's really kind. Once I saw that Jennifer Lawrence clip I knew it needed to be included.

This is definitely a special experience to have in the cinema! Thank you for sharing!

I had the same feeling!

Exactly!

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed my analysis! That scene alone is definitely striking for being relateable yet built on an utterly horrific context. Which is the essence of the whole film.

Who suffers when we succeed? That's exactly the question I have had in my mind since I saw the film. I think that question has always been here, deep inside, and this piece of art made it surface in extraordinary ways, albeit dark, darker than dark. A writer once did something similar in me but with a more poetic, ethereal touch. She asked what us, humans, did, or didn't do, to the word when we entered it. "(...) before everything is said, a dense cloud of air, almost immobile, floats on earth. The vegetal universe breathes already, and we, maybe, are wondering how to speak, how to speak to each other, without suffocating it." (my translation).

Haha wow I love that! I'll remember to check that cinema out when I'm nearby!

Wow! What an overwhelming comment! Thank you for your kind words. It's been great to hear how people, like yourself, have connected with this film. Wishing you all the best on your writing projects!

This is a really lovely comment to give me. Thank you!

Aw thank you for saying this! That's very encouraging feedback. I think the Zone Of Interest is definitely one of those films where you realise more about it in retrospect. It's incredibly haunting and masterfully crafted.

It's an incredibly poignant ending!

It's been great to hear from musicians like yourself going to see this film! The sound of this film is so brilliantly mastered. It's also interesting to hear what you said about seeing/learning from previous films. I think this film taught me that there's still much we have to learn from this time period.

I hope you get a chance to see it soon!

I think it was definitely deserving of the Oscar for best sound for exactly moments like this one.

You're welcome!

Thank you so much for the kind words! I really appreciate it.

Thank you!

Thank you!

I like the way you highlight the sound cape- which I find is haunting and well done. Worth mentioning that David Lynch uses sound in this way in Earserhead - an industrial forboding pulse of eerie chills- and other films of his. I consider him the ultimate master of sound in movies. I will watch and listen to the The Zone of Interest again.

Thank you!

"imagine what we could achieve if we were all to put aside our hatred" is the standard 'moderate liberal' demand that we forget what divides the world and just hold hands and behave nicely. There's a war going on, the wealthy corporate class against the working class all around the planet. It can't be solved by expecting those who benefit from this war to lay down their weapons. They have to be defeated, which is why we have revolutionary socialism.

That fishing scene and the moments after are so disturbing! I agree with your assessment. It's a very clever film in how it challenges us with ourselves.

Thank you so much! That's very kind. I hope you get to see the film soon!

I feel exactly the same as you do. Thank you for watching my video! I really appreciate it!

Thank you! Wow that must have been an astonishing experience. I can see how this felt like no other film set. A very surreal and poignant experience I'm sure.

I saw the film at the London Film Festival, months before making this video. I don't think I could've made it without that distance so I completely agree with you!

I read that you could see the change in colour in the water flowing downstream. In an interview on the zone of interest with Martin Amis , he tells the problem they had with hundreds of thousand bodies (😢) being thrown in fields and how that contaminated the water , which people could not drink from the tap any longer . Therefore the need to "enhance" the crematorium. I believe that it is a human bone that he picks up , cleverly not shown clearly, so that I didn't fully get what it was. A great commentary , in my opinion, amongst other things , on environmental issues, and also, again, how their idyllic life could not be separated from the horror The hard washing of the kids made me think of how we may try to erase wrong doing. Bdw, if German had not lost the war, we may have never been able to know the truth . History perspectives change all d time

It was a jawbone but the river was also becoming discoloured from ashes from the camps.

Thank you! I suspect it is in with a good chance of winning at least one Oscar (if I was to guess I'd say Best International Feature and potentially one of the Sound categories).

Agree!!! 🤞🏼🤞🏼. The sound in this movie is mind-blowing.

At the London Film Festival, I remember a few of us all said we needed to sit and think about this film for a while. It's a very poignant cinematic experience!

Thank you so much!

Thank you!

I agree!

Thank you!

Thank you!

I would suggest sitting with the film first before deciding that. I couldn't have made this video without spending significant time process the film! It is certainly very haunting and subtle in it's approach.

Sawr it. Thank you.

The girl was Polish. She was risking her life on behalf of Polish resistance army and Auschwitz prisoners of course. She made sure they got vitamins which they were lacking drastically. That’s one of a very few things that could be done at that time.

I suspect it will win at least one Oscar!

I completely agree!

When I was watching the movie, I thought the negative portions were fantasies of helping / people not being able to accept the status quo. Later I read in an interview with Jonathan Glazer that there really was a 12yr old Polish girl in the village who rode her bicycle at night to place apples out for the prisoners who worked on the railroad. They used her actual bicycle and a dress she still had. The woman died before the movie was released.

Yes they added this historical element of one righteous girl filmed in negative.

When a fact is ambiguous in real life (like whether one person or two shot JFK), we know there is a correct answer. But when something is ambiguous in a film, the viewer has a choice even if only one thing can be true for the characters. So my point is that when we see a young girl planting fruit along the road, we see her through a distorted lens. That opens a number of possibilities, some of which I’m still trying to process myself. She could be a real girl, perhaps a Jew hiding in the neighborhood. She could be a dream, perhaps even the dream version of Rudolf’s own daughter, who in the natural world of the film sits wakefully by the window and tells her father that she is giving out sugar. When we meet the night girl, she is adjacent in the editing to the Höss daughter and bridged to the real world by the story that Rudolf is reading. Thus she on a metaphorical level is also Gretel in the fairy tale, reversing the power of the witch by tricking her into her own oven. The white fruit, the white pebbles in the story, and Hansel's bread crumbs all overlap symbolically. I know I may have some details wrong, and I know we do see a girl at the piano playing a spiritual song that seemingly corresponds to the song left on the ground for the night vision girl. So someone else may see some details in the film that contradict the ambiguities that I see.

@@kenstuckey6360 I love everyone's answers thank you! But there's no mention of the "negative lens" woman taking down hanging laundry. The girl with the apples suited an ambiguous fairytale, but the woman in the wind occurred in the evening when the smokestacks are pumping out ash. and right after, Edwina's mother has disappeared in the early morning. Since the family has many servants, this isn't an actual scene but it somehow reflects a possibility - a response others might have? If so, then the negative clips might capture a group consciousness of possibilities IN CONTRAST to the Hoss family. Thanks for helping me sort those out.

Thanks @@maggiebkny I'm so glad to know that it actually happened.

I hope this changes and you get to have this cinematic experience!

@@filmcantdie It’ll never change, unfortunately. We used to have an art film series, where during the Spring and Autumn, they’d bring in a different art film every Wednesday night. That was wonderful. But that went away a good 10 years ago or more.

The Zone Of Interest is still playing in select theatres. Well worth searching online to see if one is nearby.

It's on HBO max

Ah thank you so much! That's a really good question. I do like the idea that those are moments where he is physically struggling with his inhuman lifestyle (even though he doesn't realise it). This is one of the things I'm still debating how to interpret.