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Groovelord Neato posted:That the supposed caretakers of the memory of the Holocaust have to my knowledge all come to the defense of fascistic barbarity visited upon a captive people says to me that it's all a show. The actual human beings shot en masse by Einsatzgruppen, beaten to death by their neighbors, starved in ghettoes, or walked from a cattle car to a room they'd never exit are mere abstractions to the people running these organizations. Sweeping the rooms in which it happened is just another chore. This is equating Judaism with Zionism. It is not a 1:1 guarantee that everyone who commemorates the Holocaust is supportive of Israel’s actions and running off the assumption of such is honestly disgusting, let alone calling the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum a “show.” The gently caress are you on.
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Mar 15, 2024 04:20
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Groovelord Neato posted:One of the best moments in Ken Burns's The US and the Holocaust was when a historian talks about how as memories fade the deaths of the Holocaust become merely statistics but that each person who died was not a statistic to themselves. They each had a life and a story that was different from one another but "the Holocaust" has become a symbol almost detached from the individual suffering visited upon each of them. I will say the US Holocaust Museum at the time I visited it 25 years ago did do something to counteract that detachment by giving you a pamphlet of a victim of the Holocaust which you would flip through as you made the tour following along with that person. I remember my family rooting for whoever they were handed because you did feel an attachment towards them and asking each other at the end if your person had made it. The baby of 18th months I was given did not make it. It affects me all these years later and drove me as a teen to read all I could about the Holocaust. So Glazer made a movie criticizing the erasure of the actual victims from the history of the Holocaust that focuses on the Nazis instead of the victims?
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Mar 15, 2024 06:33
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I think the movie is more about today rather than the past https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/14/the-zone-of-interest-auschwitz-gaza-genocide
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Mar 15, 2024 08:23
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Pirate Jet posted:This is equating Judaism with Zionism. It is not a 1:1 guarantee that everyone who commemorates the Holocaust is supportive of Israel’s actions and running off the assumption of such is honestly disgusting, let alone calling the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum a “show.” The gently caress are you on. No it isn't and I also didn't say everyone who commemorates the Holocaust is supportive of Israel's actions. By caretakers I meant the major organizations - the Auschwitz museum's twitter account made a frankly disgusting tweet after Oct 7. Look up how the board and president of the US Holocaust Museum reacted. Those people are the ones equating Judaism with Zionism not me. If I hadn't nuked my twitter account I'd show some examples here as I had a thread cataloging them. I thought my post made it clear I care a great deal about the Holocaust. It's probably the subject I know the most about and it's likely why I care so deeply about the plight of the Palestinians and other subjugated people. It's why I find the responses of the major Holocaust memorial groups so reprehensible. Jewmanji posted:Thanks for that great post. What is the significance of the Shoah Foundation comment? Is the implication that their cheapening the memory of the holocaust by wrapping Oct 7 into it as though it's a continuation of that? Yes. 1000 Sweaty Rikers posted:I think the movie is more about today rather than the past Steven Spielberg declared it “the best Holocaust movie I’ve witnessed since my own” – a reference to Schindler’s List, which swept the Oscars 30 years ago. The Grey Zone is a much better film than yours, Steve. And such modesty. Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Mar 15, 2024 |
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Mar 15, 2024 11:29
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Pirate Jet posted:This is equating Judaism with Zionism. It is not a 1:1 guarantee that everyone who commemorates the Holocaust is supportive of Israel’s actions and running off the assumption of such is honestly disgusting, let alone calling the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum a “show.” The gently caress are you on. That is not what they said. Most Holocaust organizations, unfortunately, have made Zionist statements. They do not represent Judaism, myself and OP agree with you. Also.... It is perfectly reasonable to feel uncomfortable with Holocaust museums and how they package the Holocaust to be a "show". It is fundamentally packaging up unspeakable human misery to put on display for crowds of tourists. Tiktoks and selfies of influencers at Auschwitz don't happen in a vacuum. There is an intrinsic quality to hosting a tourist "attraction" no matter how important or serious it is that attracts that behavior. Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Mar 15, 2024 |
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Mar 15, 2024 17:54
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I saw this a week or two ago and have been thinking about it since. I didn't like the ending at first but my interpretation of it, especially since historically afaik it takes place before the killing really ramps up even more, is that this violence will keep continuing to happen and will just become a banal display of history in a museum somewhere until even that fades into the background against the newly accumulating horrors until we do something to stop it. I don't think it's simply "these things will happen forever it's human nature," the focus on the striving aspirational modern family is too clear. This is about modern society being built on industrial slaughter that continues to this day, but that means it isn't innate to humanity and can't be excused that way. Also I do agree too many reviews are like "this is about the banality of evil and compartmentalisation" when I think actually as the film progresses the point is you might think that to start then you see how the family are extremely aware of what is going on and actively indulging in and supporting it.
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Mar 15, 2024 18:41
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Groovelord Neato posted:No it isn't and I also didn't say everyone who commemorates the Holocaust is supportive of Israel's actions. By caretakers I meant the major organizations - the Auschwitz museum's twitter account made a frankly disgusting tweet after Oct 7. Look up how the board and president of the US Holocaust Museum reacted. Those people are the ones equating Judaism with Zionism not me. If I hadn't nuked my twitter account I'd show some examples here as I had a thread cataloging them. All these zionists who love The Zone of Interests really are something. But then again the jewish relationship with israel, especially in the US really has always involved a lot of cognitive dissidence.
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Mar 15, 2024 19:08
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Communist Thoughts posted:Also I do agree too many reviews are like "this is about the banality of evil and compartmentalisation" when I think actually as the film progresses the point is you might think that to start then you see how the family are extremely aware of what is going on and actively indulging in and supporting it. I appreciate how the film uses sleep to get across who is truly complicit and comfortable with the horrors on the other side of the wall. The parents are the only ones we see sleep soundly. Hedwig's mother is shown unable to sleep and staring in horror out the window. The sons stay up at night distracting themselves by playing. The little girl just sits in the dark, blankly staring off into space. But those parents, sleeping without a care.
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Mar 15, 2024 19:35
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I should probably watch this again (years from now) because there’s a lot of interesting things being pointed out that I didn’t at all notice. I liked it when I first watched it and my wife did too, we “got it” that it’s about the present and not necessarily just about the Nazi family, but it didn’t hit emotionally the way I thought it would. But it’s a week later and I’m still thinking about it, so I guess it actually did. The most disturbed I’ve been by a movie in a very long time. A question I’ve been thinking about in the final scenes with the retching and the visions of the holocaust museum, it seems to be implied that these are visions that Rudolph is having. Sort of seeing the future, because he looks down the dark hallway and the “visions” begin. But I also think now after more time to sit on it that he could be looking at us, the viewers. We’re included in his vision of this future. A lots been said about the way the film is shot, fly on the wall almost surveillance like, so it seems important that in that moment he seems to be looking directly at the camera.
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Mar 15, 2024 19:48
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The director of Son of Saul in an unhinged statement says Glazer should have kept his mouth shut "instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilisation" while also claiming progressives are going to finish the job Hitler started. And christ the executive producer is a complete psychopath. quote:I just fundamentally disagree with Jonathan on this. My support for Israel is unwavering. The war and the continuation of the war is the responsibility of Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organisation which continues to hold and abuse the hostages, which doesn’t use its tunnels to protect the innocent civilians of Gaza but uses it to hide themselves and allow Palestinians to die. I think the war is tragic and awful and the loss of civilian life is awful, but I blame Hamas for that. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/mar/15/jonathan-glazer-oscars-speech-condemned-by-son-of-saul-director-laszlo-nemes
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Mar 15, 2024 20:52
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Many weeks after seeing this movie and it's still stuck with me. So glad that it won the Oscar, and so glad that Glazer made the comments he did, even if they're pretty milquetoast. All these pro-Israel freaks lusting for Palestinian genocide need to be exposed for who they really are, and at least these kinds of cultural moments are doing that work.
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Mar 15, 2024 23:17
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Had to watch this in same room as impatient niece who had a tablet playing Spongebob. Will need to rewatch in my own time. I read the book eons ago after my father handed it to me. I hated it. It was a vapid read cooked up by some guy looking to impress his peers, instead of making any real point or observation on a major historical tragedy. I will say that Martin Amis is a better writer than my own country's John Boyne. Ugh. The film improves upon the book by taking the title and nothing else. Instead choosing to dramatize what mostly happened in real life anyway. I'm sad to say we'll likely see this film again made again decades after the fact with each atrocity. Wisely it lets the events speak for themeselves with no title cards, narration, and barely any music or camerawork. The detached style of directing could work for a straight horror film in the same vein, but it would cost a dime to CGI out all the cameras.
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Mar 17, 2024 22:51
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I was able to see this in a theater tonight and I think I was lucky enough to have some good sound. For those who get precise about things: no the background noise is not CONSTANT. It doesn’t occur when they’re out on the river/creek or in other non diegetic locations. It also gets a bit more quiet in some scenes. We barely got any of the effects of this on the children, other than some pretty average teasing of a younger and older sibling. Nothing sociopathic. Like they are inured to the evil around them and just grow up to be good custodians of what is already built. The brief scene with the servant acting as sexual partner to Hoss was interesting. Im awful at faces and wasn’t sure if it’s the same woman who was giving apples to the workers or not. Or the same servant threatened by the wife or not. It was also interesting that he and his wife sleep in separate beds like loving I love Lucy! What the gently caress? Is he asexual except for fulfilling the fuhrers dreams? What is going on there? I took the ending to just be pretty literal in that this is Hoss’s garden. Forever tended by unnamed polish women. A sea of rusted brown. Color plays a big part in this. The garden is always lushly green and with pops of bright flowers. The family is always wearing the most washed out colors and is basically, tan, black, and white. They stand out against this beautiful verdant background they are cultivating. For the fairy tales, it’s the same film they use to drone strike peasants, used for the gretel analogy. But the actual footage of the white German bodies acts like a drastic stark contrast, especially with all the near naked swimming scenes. And no poo poo the movie is about modern times. The multiple genocides in progress or on hold. Or the very pertinent one happening right now. I think the fact that the NYT hated this movie about trying to maintain normalcy adjacent to a genocide in their December 2023 review should tell you a lot.
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Mar 20, 2024 05:18
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Good post. The sleeping in separate beds thing was very much a cultural norm in a lot of western nations in that era, nothing unusual about it
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Mar 20, 2024 13:34
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fr0id posted:We barely got any of the effects of this on the children, other than some pretty average teasing of a younger and older sibling. Nothing sociopathic. Like they are inured to the evil around them and just grow up to be good custodians of what is already built. you didnt think locking your brother in the greenhouse and pretending to be a guard outside a gas chamber was a little weird?
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Mar 20, 2024 17:03
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Famethrowa posted:you didnt think locking your brother in the greenhouse and pretending to be a guard outside a gas chamber was a little weird? Holy poo poo I did not think of that
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Mar 20, 2024 17:53
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in case anyone has missed this, probably one of the worst, dumbest movie reviews i've ever read (letterboxd included) Opinion: ‘The Zone of Interest’ — a Holocaust movie without Jews
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Mar 20, 2024 18:25
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Peter Rutland posted:Indeed, the film implies that Höss was just doing his job.
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Mar 20, 2024 18:28
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quote:Several scenes will leave viewers confused, such as the one where Höss finds a jawbone while fishing in the river and drags his kids out of the water. I would not have known what was happening except I had previously read in a review that there are supposedly human remains being dumped in the river. What the gently caress how did he not know what was happening when the ash entered from the right of the screen? I thought the jawbone was too much because it was a horrific image on its own but this dullard didn't even get it with the jaw.
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Mar 20, 2024 18:32
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It's a simple equation really. The quality of a film is directly proportional to the exact number of Jewish people shown on screen. 100? Good stuff. 1000? Absolutely. 10,000? Now we're talking! Come to think of it it's a similar reason why Shoah is so bad- there's literally no documentary footage of the holocaust whatsoever in it- denialists will drink it up! Jewmanji fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Mar 20, 2024 |
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Mar 20, 2024 18:39
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the damage that films like Schindler's List and The Pianist have done to our cultural understanding of the Holocaust is incalculable. Can't be understood or talked about unless you are soaking in misery porn of dead Jews, apparently.
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Mar 20, 2024 19:56
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Groovelord Neato posted:What the gently caress how did he not know what was happening when the ash entered from the right of the screen? I thought the jawbone was too much because it was a horrific image on its own but this dullard didn't even get it with the jaw. Most people are just completely incapable of intellectually engaging with anything that's purely visual. Guarantee if you point out something like the deliberate center framing of the showerhead in many scenes featuring the backyard pool, and what it's supposed to call to mind, they would act like you're some kind of cinematic Rain Main.
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Mar 20, 2024 20:05
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fr0id posted:We barely got any of the effects of this on the children, other than some pretty average teasing of a younger and older sibling. Nothing sociopathic. Like they are inured to the evil around them and just grow up to be good custodians of what is already built. I think that's one of the points, is that to be good custodians of a genocidal system requires the warping of human beings in ways that are very easy to mistake for lack of response, if the right structures are in place. IMO the only Hoss kid who doesn't clearly demonstrate some sort of damage because of their exposure to what is happening is the baby, and that's only because they don't have the cognitive capacity to understand any of it yet although I think the scene with the night nurse could suggest the baby is picking up on the extremely bad vibes. At least one of the daughters is clearly hosed up by their proximity to the camps. The younger son viscerally responds to it by trying to block out the sounds and use his toys to make sense of the whole thing. With the oldest son it's a bit more apparent because he is at the age where the expectations for him in terms of fitting into society are becoming more clear and he is exploring what that means. In addition to the greenhouse thing, I think the brief scene where the older son is making out with one of the Polish serving girls around the back of the house is a reflection of Hoss's coercion of the serving woman who had sex with him in his office. Even if the kid never saw or heard it he very clearly internalized his parent's beliefs on the value or role of non-Aryans - servile and accessible for any and all purposes until they're no longer useful. And both father and son engaged in those actions out of sight, where they couldn't be judged or deemed as tainting themselves through such intimate physical interaction. You even see this reflected in the scene where Hedwig is sifting through clothes seized from victims - she won't even let the dog in the room. There are zero heartwarming scenes in this movie, or even scenes that are meant to reflect normal formative experiences for children. The horror is right there with them, in them, at every moment. Anyway I watched this last night and probably need to watch it again with some good headphones on to really get a grasp on the layering of the sounds that convey so much about what is going on in the background. Insane that anyone can watch this and not immediately see how it is about the world today, not just the distinct genocides (or the slow moving ones) but the ways that so much of Nazi thinking/logic about violence and humanity (or human capital) and the materiality (or complicity) of family as the foundation for evil on massive scales is layered into modern society. Stalin was right, we should've hung every registered Nazi, their corporate collaborators, and probably every commissioned officer in an Axis country just to be safe. Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 20, 2024 20:08
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I keep returning to the imagery of the film and it feels like there's basically a dual meaning to virtually every frame/scene. Thinking of how Hedwig would rather throw her own mom in the oven (metaphorically) than face up to what she's participating in. Famethrowa posted:the damage that films like Schindler's List and The Pianist have done to our cultural understanding of the Holocaust is incalculable. Can't be understood or talked about unless you are soaking in misery porn of dead Jews, apparently. I took a class in undergrad about the aesthetics of the holocaust in film and documentary and it was super interesting how complicated of a subject it is. There are very few easy answers. edit: I'm rewatching now, and since my first viewing I actually learned what the Kanada warehouses were. God. Even beyond the more obvious horror of Hedwig trying on a dress, the fact that it's made of fur feels almost subliminal in its suggestion of other industrial-scale cruelties. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Mar 20, 2024 |
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Mar 20, 2024 20:13
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Drewsky posted:I should probably watch this again (years from now) because there’s a lot of interesting things being pointed out that I didn’t at all notice. One thing that absolutely stands out to me is that they are cleaning and sanitizing the museum.
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Mar 20, 2024 20:28
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Just saw this. Absolutely mindblowing. The relentless background noise was so unsettling. I have nothing really to offer in terms of insight other to say I appreciate the interpretations other posters have made ITT. A technical question, though: I saw the term 'hidden cameras' mentioned a couple of times. How 'hidden' are we talking? I get that this (and the use of long single shots) is to allow maybe a more freeform attitude towards blocking and essentially really let the acting on its own play out a scene, but yeah - how hidden are we talking here?
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Mar 21, 2024 01:49
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Mister Speaker posted:Just saw this. Absolutely mindblowing. The relentless background noise was so unsettling. I have nothing really to offer in terms of insight other to say I appreciate the interpretations other posters have made ITT. i think some were "hidden" hidden/out of frames, while a lot were removed via vfx idk how standard these kind of effects are but it seems impressive to my eyes https://twitter.com/beforesmag/status/1767737200970789308
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Mar 21, 2024 02:51
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Danger posted:One thing that absolutely stands out to me is that they are cleaning and sanitizing the museum. Yeah--obviously those locations could have been shown without the cleaning ladies. We're being invited to think about the deliberateness of the display, and also how inured the women must be to the imagery. On some level it's Hoss seeing this. Is it possible that to him the museum reads as a monument to his accomplishment? That these future people have preserved his work to celebrate it?
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Mar 21, 2024 11:31
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https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/0...Share&sgrp=c-cb lol of course
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Mar 21, 2024 12:36
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Knew exactly who it would be before clicking the link. edit: lmao this is from his op-ed published two days ago: quote:I first suggested a version of this idea in my column on Oct. 7, by transforming Gaza from a locus of conflict to a “zone of shared interests” between Israel and friendly Arab states. Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 13:50
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Definitely nothing suspicious about all these articles coming out trashing a film widely regarded as a masterpiece up until the night of the Oscars. I distinctly remember seeing many critiques of Glazer’s speech as being relatively mild the night of and the day after, but it seems now the bravest thing anyone’s said at the Academy Awards since Michael Moore denounced the Iraq War. Nucleic Acids fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 16:14
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It's the unfortunate situation where any form of sympathy for the people of Gaza is immediately considered anti-Semitic.
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Mar 21, 2024 16:35
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Even the victims of Oct 7 are anti-semites now: https://www.timesofisrael.com/likud-lawmaker-screams-at-relative-of-october-7-victims-during-knesset-hearing/ For context the subject of this piece stated unequivocally that Israel should use nuclear weapons on Gaza Jewmanji fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 16:39
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Nucleic Acids posted:Definitely nothing suspicious about all these articles coming out trashing a film widely regarded as a masterpiece up until the night of the Oscars. Always worth pointing out that Polanski got a standing ovation at the very same awards show.
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Mar 21, 2024 16:47
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_TZTCQ53ss I found this interesting, worth a watch. edit: Glazer is extremely articulate about his creative process, and this is an unusually interesting Q&A relative to most film Q&As. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 19:52
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Always worth pointing out that Polanski got a standing ovation at the very same awards show. Not the very same award show. It happened 20 years ago.
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Mar 21, 2024 20:01
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I think he meant the same year as Fahrenheit 9/11
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Mar 21, 2024 21:56
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Yes, lol. Also sometimes referred to as the "Harvey Weinstein Oscars" as 3 of the 5 best picture nominees were Miramax produced.
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Mar 21, 2024 21:59
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