I'm referring to another film we went to see yesterday and I felt it needed comment.
Earlier in the week we watched One Life which was a nicely rounded film if a touch sentimental set during the Nazi occupation of Prague. So we thought we would follow this up by seeing The Zone of Interest.
This was a totally different film with a totally different focus and a film it's difficult to review as the main question is did the producer achieve what he set out to which was the difficult concept of showing normality living side by side with genocide with all the violence merely implied?
It was another of those episodic films with so many of the episodes seemingly going nowhere and with no explanations as to their relevance.
Put simply the film is based around the Hoss family. A pretty normal family. Father Rudolph lives with his wife Hedwig, his children and his servants in a large house with beautifully tended gardens and a home made swimming pool. The family go on picnics, celebrate birthdays and enjoy being together.
But this is no ordinary family. Rudolph Hoss (not to be confused with Rudolf Hess) is commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, an evil man in a family setting. We never journey inside the camp until virtually the end when the film switches to the present day with cleaners clearing up for another day of tourism (I'm not sure tourism is the correct term here).
As I've said the violence and murder going on over the fence in the camp is implied and represented by gun shots and a few random screams and other noises. One of the main points is that normality in this place is the mass murder of innocent people whilst the idyllic life is the abnormal. In other words the juxtaposition of normal.
As a consequence the action is slow, almost laboured. There is little story and the whole thing just fizzles out. So many scenes are left unexplained. Hedwig's mother comes to stay, admires the garden but then leaves in the night without warning. Has she been affected by what she has heard? We never find out. She does leave a note but we never get to find out what is in it.
Similarly one of the film's last shots is of Rudolph Hoss throwing up after a ball/party. Did he have too much to drink or is he ill (a previous shot is of him having a medical examination) or is he suddenly haunted by what he is involved in? We never find out.
I have a fascination with German history ever since I studied it at A level. I suspect that The Zone of Interest has tried to put a slightly different twist on the holocaust but, after two hours, I was left feeling doubtful that it had succeeded.
The one thing that did concern me before watching the film was that, by depicting Hoss as a family man in a family setting, I would feel sympathy for a character who was quite simply a monster. Thankfully this never happened. I found him and his wife quite loathsome.
One of the thoughts that has taken up much of my time for quite some time has been the feelings of descendants of Nazis and how they have come to terms with the inhuman behaviour of their ancestors. I say this in light of my own research for our book on Le Paradis Massacre into the Nazi Fritz Knoechlein. I wonder what his descendants think of a man who ordered the massacre of 97 British soldiers. It would have been 99 had two of them not survived. So far we haven't been able to track any of them down, although to be honest we haven't tried that hard because we thought anything we picked up wouldn't have fitter in the book and we wanted Knoechlein to remain as what he was described by Colonel Scotland "the worst kind of Nazi."
For the record Rudolph Hoss was the man responsible for introducing Zyklon B gas to Auschwitz. He was later tried for war crimes and hanged. He left messages for his wife and eldest son denouncing his Nazi background under the realisation that the movement would and could not last.
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Before going to the cinema we watched Norwich beat Coventry 2-1 with a much improved display but there's still improvements needed.
It all meant that we didn't get home until relatively late, but somehow still in time sadly for Casualty on television. At the end of another blood and guts episode the announcer said there was information available on the internet for anyone having feelings of despair. The only feeling of despair I get is from watching Casualty.
Today it's another film. This time at Hethersett Village screen and I have a feeling that the latest offering featuring Belgium detective Hercule Poirot is going to be a little lighter than yesterday's offering.
Tomorrow I'm going to carry out a threat. I promised/threatened a list of my favourite music tracks. Watch this space as they say.