Review: ‘The Zone of Interest,’ starring Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller

October 9, 2023

by Carla Hay

Christian Friedel in “The Zone of Interest” (Photo courtesy of A24)

“The Zone of Interest”

Directed by Jonathan Glazer

German, Polish and Yiddish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Poland, in 1943, the dramatic film “The Zone of Interest” (based loosely on the novel of the same name) features an all-white group of people representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Auschwitz concentration camp commandant/Nazi official Rudolf Höss and his family live with casual indifference near the concentration camp, where about 990,000 Jewish people were murdered during his reign of terror.

Culture Audience: “The Zone of Interest” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker Jonathan Glazer and people who are interested in unconventional Holocaust movies.

Sandra Hüller (pictured at right) in “The Zone of Interest” (Photo courtesy of A24)

Most Holocaust movies are shown from the perspectives of the victims or the rescuers. “The Zone of Interest” is told from the perspective of a Nazi leader who thought his job of committing genocide on Jewish people was perfectly normal. It’s a different type of Holocaust movie because it shows with unflinching clarity how the shameful horrors of the Holocaust were casually accepted by Nazi families, such as those of commandant Rudolf Höss. Concentration camps were treated like factories.

Written and directed by Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix Award (which is the equivalent of second place) and the FIPRESCI Prize. “The Zone of Interest” has since made the rounds at other films in 2023, including the Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. “The Zone of Interest” is loosely based on Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name.

The title refers to the term “used by the Nazi SS to describe the 40-square-kilometer area immediately surrounding the Auschwitz concentration camp on the outskirts of Oświęcim, Poland,” according to the production notes for “The Zone of Interest.” Approximately 990,000 Jewish people died in Auschwitz, which existed from 1940 to 1945. In real life, Höss was the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz from 1940 to 1943 and from 1944 to 1945. He was eventually convicted of war crimes in 1947, the year that he died at age 45 by an execution hanging.

“The Zone of Interest” takes place in 1943, before Rudolf (played by Christian Friedel) is transferred to another concentration camp. On the surface, “The Zone of Interest” looks like it’s just about the mundane activities of a family. But the movie intends to show how deceptively “normal” people who commit heinous crimes can look, especially when they are surrounded by family members. An early scene in the movie shows Rudolf having a carefree picnic with members of his family near a lake.

Rudolf’s family members who are shown in the movie include his moody wife Hedwig Höss (played by Sandra Hüller), who is kind and loving to her children but rude and demeaning to the family’s housekeepers. Rudolf and Hedwig have five children, ranging in ages from infancy to about 14 years old. They are son Claus Höss (played by Johann Karthaus); son Hans Höss (played by Luis Noah Witte); daughter Inge-Brigit Höss (played by Nele Ahrensmeier); daughter Heideraud Höss (played by Lili Falk) and baby daughter Annagret Höss (played by Anastazja Drobniak, Cecylia Pękala and Kalman Wilson).

Later, Hedwig’s mother Lina Hensel (played by Imogen Kogge) comes to visit. Hedwig tells Lina in a bragging tone of voice, “Rudi says I’m the queen of Auschwitz.” It’s one of a few scenes in the movie where the Nazi followers show their antisemitism like a badge of honor. A cliché movie would have had the Nazis constantly spewing verbal hatred of Jewish people. “The Zone of Interest” more accurately shows that evil bigots don’t often say their most heinous prejudicial thoughts out loud several times a day.

Most of the “The Zone of Interest” takes place in the medium-sized home of the Höss family, where they live close to the death camp known as Auschwitz. The movie was filmed in the same vicinity where the real Auschwitz existed. Rudolf and Hedwig have no problem with the idea that their family is living near a place dedicated to torturing and murdering innocent people. There’s a disturbing scene where the Höss house is shown in a wide shot on a very sunny day that looks perfect—except in the background are the unmistakable smoke fumes of gas chambers being operated at Auschwitz.

The Jewish victims of these atrocities are never seen on screen in “The Zone of Interest.” It’s the movie’s way of saying that when these Nazi perpetrators were at home, Jewish people were “out of sight, out of mind.” However, Rudolf can’t help but take remnants of his work into his home. In one scene, he’s hunched over a bathroom sink as he blows black ash out of his nose into the sink. In another bathroom scene, he carefully washes his penis out of view of his family, with the obvious implication that he committed the type of rape that leaves damning stains.

Another scene shows a close-up of Rudolf standing up at work with only his body in the screen frame. But in the background are the harrowing sounds of people screaming and gunshots. It’s left up to “The Zone of Interest” viewers to speculate what type of crimes against humanity were being committed out of view. Much of “The Zone of Interest” is filmed as if it’s a cinéma vérité-styled documentary about a “typical” family in Poland at this time.

During another scene in the movie, Hedwig is talking at a kitchen table with a few visiting female friends, who are engaging in some gossip. In the next room, Rudolf and some of his SS colleagues are seated at table with their own conversation that is much more sinister: They are discussing the best way to engineer and place gas chamber equipment.

The Nazi men also talk about gas chamber procedures: “burn, cool, unload, reload.” They discuss it as if they’re talking about a regular assembly line routine at a factory, not burning people to death, letting their dead bodies cool off, dumping the bodies, and then bringing in more innocent people to murder in a gas chamber. The Höss family dog is treated with more kindness and respect than these hateful bigots ever had for the Jewish people they slaughtered.

There’s another scene where Rudolf makes a phone call to berate someone into making sure that the lilac bushes at Auschwitz get special care. He makes a threat to say that anyone who makes the lilac bushes “bleed” will be punished. (In other words: “Don’t get any blood on the lilac bushes.”) The Höss family home has a beautiful backyard garden, where the flowers get more care than the people who are starved, tortured and murdered in Auschwitz. It’s another example of how Jewish people’s lives are disregarded by Adolf Hitler devotees such as Rudolf and Hedwig.

Many movies about the Holocaust would want to recreate these disgusting crimes. However, “The Zone of Interest” effectively shakes people up into remembering that the Holocaust was allowed to continue for as long as it did because it was considered a “normal” way of life for many non-Jewish people who chose to look the other way if they didn’t directly participate in this antisemitic genocide. It’s the movie’s reminder that the Holocaust didn’t happen suddenly but in increments. Jewish people were targeted, their rights were gradually taken away, and then they were left vulnerable to being harmed in the Holocaust.

Not everyone in the movie sides overtly sides with the Nazis. The Höss children seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that they are living next to an antisemitic murder facility, although it’s implied that their parents are teaching these children to hate Jewish people. The Höss family has two housekeepers in their late teens or early 20s: meek and passive Marta (played by Martyna Poznańska) gets most of Hedwig’s wrath, while sturdy and reliable Aniela (played by Zuzanna Kobiela) is quietly rebellious and secretly helps feed the starving Jewish people at the concentration camp.

At night, Aniela rides her bicycle to the concentration camp to drop off apples in the dirt where the laborers will find them. She also drops apples into the underground bunker prisons where many of the captured people are being held. Aniela knows which areas to go where she won’t be seen by the soldiers keeping guard. When she’s doing these secretive activities, the movie shows her in night vision-type lighting, as if she’s under secret surveillance by a camera with night vision.

Rudolf and Hedwig talk about things that seem ordinary and typical for people in a middle-class household. Hedwig mentions that she’d like him to take her to a spa in Italy. Rudolf is seen reading a children’s book to one of his daughters in bed. It’s not exactly the movie saying, “Nazis: They’re just like us,” but it’s the movie’s way of letting viewers know that people who believe in this extreme bigotry don’t look like monsters on the outside. They could be the harmless-looking people next door.

In a scene toward the end of movie, Rudolf is standing alone near a stairwell of a government building when he dry heaves and spits on the ground. It’s a scene reminiscent of near the end of the 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary “The Act of Killing,” in which former death squad leader Anwar Congo, who participated in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965 to 1966, begins uncontrollably dry wretching, as if he’s overwhelmed by the memories of what his atrocities looked like and smelled like. In “The Zone of Interest,” a present-day scene at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum shows some of the devastating museum displays that have evidence of the many lives lost in the Holocaust.

Friedel and Hüller give capable performances, but “The Zone of Interest” doesn’t have big, showoff acting for a reason: The point of the movie is not to be about scene-stealing dramatics or to have cartoonish villains. It’s about showing how extraordinary cruelty can be condoned in plain sight and be rendered “ordinary” by the people who enable it to happen.

A24 will release “The Zone of Interest” in select U.S. cinemas on December 8, 2023.

Review: ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ (2023), starring Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Graner, Antoine Reinartz, Samuel Theis, Jehnny Beth and Camille Rutherford

October 2, 2023

by Carla Hay

Sandra Hüller and Swann Arlaud in “Anatomy of a Fall” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“Anatomy of a Fall” (2023)

Directed by Justine Triet

French with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in France, the dramatic film “Anatomy of a Fall” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A famous novelist, who is a German immigrant, is accused of murdering her husband, who fell out of a third-floor window in their home. 

Culture Audience: “Anatomy of a Fall” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching well-acted psychological thrillers and courtroom dramas.

Milo Machado Graner in “Anatomy of a Fall” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“Anatomy of a Fall” is an above-average mystery thriller that will leave people guessing about the answer to the mystery. The movie is a little too long, but the courtroom scenes are riveting. “Anatomy of a Fall” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize.

Directed by Justine Triet (who co-wrote the “Anatomy of a Fall” screenplay with Arthur Harari), “Anatomy of a Fall” is a sprawling movie with a total running time of 152 minutes. The film achieves a tricky balance of spending a lot of time exploring the psyche of the story’s protagonist while still giving viewers the feeling that the protagonist is still too mysterious to completely know. This inscrutability is why the ending of the movie is effective but will be unsettling to viewers who want clear and undeniable answers at the end the story.

“Anatomy of a Fall” begins by showing a fateful day in the life of an affluent family living in a fairly remote French Alps chalet near Grenoble, France. The family has been living in this chalet for about one year. Early on in the story, one of the family members will die on the house’s property.

Sandra Voyter (played by Sandra Hüller) is a German immigrant who is a well-known, successful novelist. Her husband Samuel Maleski (played by Samuel Theis) is a university professor who is an aspiring writer. Their 11-year-old son Daniel (played by Milo Machado Graner) is visually impaired because his optic nerves became permanently damaged after he was accidentally hit by a motorcycle when he was younger. Daniel isn’t completely blind but his vision very limited.

The day starts off in a fairly normal manner. It’s winter, so there is snow all around, but the day is sunny and clear. Sandra is being interviewed in the family home by a graduate student journalist named Zoé Solidor (played by Camille Rutherford), who is a star-struck fan of Sandra.

During the interview, Sandra gets annoyed because Samuel is in the third-floor attic and is playing music that is loud enough to be heard in the room where the interview is taking place. An irritated Sandra loudly tells Samuel to turn down the music more than once before he finally does so. The song that he’s playing is Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band’s cover version of 50 Cent’s 2003 song “P.I.M.P.,” which is played several times later in the courtroom scenes.

After Zoé leaves, Daniel comes back from a walk with his guide dog, a Border Collie named Snoop. (The dog’s name is real life is Messi.) To his horror, Daniel finds the dead body of Samuel on the ground outside the home. It appears that Samuel has fallen out of the attic window of the house. Was it an accident, suicide or murder?

Those are the questions that continue to swirl when Sandra becomes a person of interest when the investigation into the death begins. Sandra claims she was taking a nap at the time that Samuel fell out of the window. About an hour into the nap, she heard Daniel scream when he found Samuel’s body.

She also tells investigators and her defense attorney Vincent Renzi (played by Swann Arlaud) that she thinks Samuel’s death was an accident. Vincent tells Sandra, “Nobody is going to believe that. I don’t believe that.”

An autopsy reveals that Samuel had a severe blow to his head before he died, but the cause of death is ruled as inconclusive. Sandra then changes her theory of how Samuel died by saying that he could have committed suicide. She tells authorities and Vincent that she remembers that about six months earlier, she found Samuel unconscious in a puddle of his vomit because he had taken an intentional overdose of sleeping pills.

Sandra, who admits she was the only other person in the house when Samuel died, becomes the only suspect. She’s arrested for murder, indicted, and then goes on trial, one year after Samuel’s death. Sandra pleads not guilty. Her defense is that the blow to Samuel’s head probably came from a small wooden shed located directly beneath the window, with the theory being that Samuel hit his head on the shed during the fall, before he fell on the ground. However, there was no DNA found on the roof of the shed.

Vincent tells Sandra early on when they begin working together that he doesn’t know if she’s guilty or not guilty, but he expects her to be honest with him. As time goes on, people find out that Sandra has many secrets. She’s often dishonest and rude, which affects her credibility and likability. But is she guilty of murdering Samuel?

One of the truths that come out during the trial is that Samuel and Sandra had a troubled marriage before he died. Sandra and Samuel met when they were both living in London, and he had just become a university professor. Their relationship revolved around “intellectual stimulation, even at the expense of everything else,” says Sandra.

Samuel and Sandra had a volatile marriage that got worse after Samuel convinced Sandra to move from London back to his native France. Sandra tells Vincent in a private conversation that she was very happy in London. She bitterly says of the decision to move to France: “I left my shithole in Germany to live in his shithole.” Sandra tells Vincent that Samuel was a frustrated and wannabe novelist who couldn’t finish a manuscript and was jealous of her success as a published author.

Sandra, who is openly bisexual, is described in the movie as being very seductive and alluring when she wants to be. She admits that she had sexual relationships outside the marriage, including an affair with a woman. Samuel knew about these affairs. According to Sandra, he wasn’t happy about the infidelity, but he tolerated it.

More suspicion falls on Sandra when it’s revealed that Samuel secretly made an audio recording of a violent argument that he and Sandra had the day before he died. The recording is played in court, but it’s difficult to tell from the recording who initiated the violence. At the time of Samuel’s death, Sandra had a bruise on her elbow. She says she got the bruise from accidentally bumping into a kitchen counter at her home.

One of the more memorable aspects of “Anatomy of a Fall” is how this entire ordeal affects Daniel. After the death of Samuel, introverted Daniel becomes very depressed to the point where it’s difficult for him to get out of bed. He’s assigned a child therapist named Marge Berger (played by Jehnny Beth), who is compassionate and tries to remain as neutral as possible with Daniel about what she thinks about Sandra.

As time goes on in the trial, the prosecutor (played by Antoine Reinartz) and the media seem determined to place the marriage of Sandra and Samuel on trial too. Sandra is also judged for not being a stereotypical image of a warm-hearted, nurturing and virtuous mother. It’s the movie’s way of observing how society can judge mothers who are on trial for murder.

Sandra is not cruel, but she is certainly a complicated person. The movie leaves it up to viewers to decide how manipulative she might or might not be. Hüller gives a masterful performance as someone who thinks she’s smarter than the average person and has little to no patience with anyone who doesn’t agree with her point of view. Graner gives a standout performance as vulnerable Daniel, who might have some secrets of his own.

“Anatomy of a Fall” has well-written courtroom scenes that will keep viewers interested in what will happen next. There’s also a point in the movie where it looks like Sandra and Vincent look like they’re attracted to each other. Will they act on this attraction? And is Sandra faking this attraction to manipulate Vincent? It’s a testament to the excellent writing and performances in “Anatomy of a Fall” that the movie raises many questions but the answers are not always predictable or simple.

Neon will release “Anatomy of a Fall” in select U.S. cinemas on October 13, 2023. The movie will be released on digital an VOD on December 22, 2023.

Review: ‘I’m Your Man’ (2021), starring Dan Stevens and Maren Eggert

October 4, 2021

by Carla Hay

Maren Eggert and Dan Stevens in “I’m Your Man” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)

“I’m Your Man” (2021)

Directed by Maria Schrader

German with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Berlin, the romantic comedy/drama “I’m Your Man” features an almost all-white cast of characters (with one mixed-race person and one person of Indian heritage) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A museum scientist/researcher reluctantly agrees to do a three-week experiment to live with a humanoid robot that is designed to be her perfect man. 

Culture Audience: “I’m Your Man” will appeal primarily to viewers who are interested in well-acted movies that combine romance with depictions of how technology affects humanity.

Dan Stevens and Sandra Hüller in “I’m Your Man” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)

“I’m Your Man” asks the question “Can a robot be programmed to be a perfect love partner?” It’s a question faced by Dr. Alma Felser (played by Maren Eggers), an analytical scientist who works as a researcher at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. She’s been chosen to participate in an experiment to test if a robot can be programmed to be her perfect man.

Because humans created these robots, it’s an experiment that assumes that humans are the ones in control and have superior knowledge over the robots. However, the appeal of this charming, well-acted movie is when “know it all” Alma finds out that she might learn some things about herself from this robot. The question then becomes, “How emotionally attached should Alma become to this robot, when he can cater to her needs, but he still has no soul?”

Directed by Maria Schrader (who won an Emmy Award for directing the 2020 Netflix limited series “Unorthodox”), “I’m Your Man” is based on Emma Braslavsky’s short story “Ich bin dein Mensch.” Schrader and Jan Schomburg adapted the story into the “I’m Your Man” screenplay. “I’m Your Man” is Germany’s official entry to be considered for a Best International Feature nomination for the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony.

Alma is a never-married bachelorette in her mid-to-late 40s. Her life revolves around her work. In the movie’s opening scene, Alma arrives at a work-related party, where she soon meets Tom (played by Dan Stevens), a good-looking man in his late 30s. Tom immediately kisses her hand, flirts with her, and tries to impress her with his knowledge. He mentions that he likes Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Autumn Day” poem, which is a favorite poem of Alma’s too. Tom shows Alma that he can do large mathematical calculations in his head.

But then, his speech starts to repeat, like a broken record or a glitch in playback. An unnamed Pergamon Museum employee (played by Sandra Hüller), who is supervising this robot experiment, has Tom taken away from the party. And that’s when she tells Alma that Tom is really a robot and that Alma has been chosen to be the ideal person to test if this robot can be the perfect man for whomever is paired with the robot.

Alma’s female colleague says matter-of-factly about the temporary glitch in Tom: “You have no idea how hard it is to program flirting … Holograms can be done cheaper and longer.” The robot that is being tested isn’t just programmed with ways to talk to people. The robot can also anticipate the needs of the companion human, though a series of algorithms. And through detection of brain waves, facial expressions and body language, the robot can deduce a person’s true inner feelings.

Later, when she’s at her job, Alma hears more details about this “perfect man” robot. She finds out that she was chosen for this experiment because she currently doesn’t have a love partner. The experiment would require Alma to live with Tom for three weeks. Alma is completely against the idea that robots can become legitimate companions for human beings, so she refuses to be a part of the experiment.

However, after getting much pleading and coaxing from her colleagues, Alma agrees to participate in the experiment. Alma’s female colleague tells Alma this selling point as a way to convince Alma: “When happiness knocks on the door, you should open it.”

At first, Alma is very uncomfortable with Tom living with her. He is very doting (he cooks and cleans for her without her having to ask) and tries to be affectionate with her. But she is cold and dismissive, treating him more like a pesky housemate, rather than a potentially intimate companion.

Alma considers herself to be an independent woman, so part of her resentment (which she doesn’t say out loud) is that she doesn’t like that her colleagues chose her to live with this robot because they think she’s a lonely, aging spinster. She also hates that Tom has been programmed to say sappy lines to her such as, “Your eyes are like two mountain lakes that I can sink into.”

Stevens, who is British in real life, portrays Tom’s as speaking German with a British accent. It’s explained in the movie that because Alma has shown a pattern of being attracted to non-German men, Tom was programmed to sound like he’s not from Germany. This deep mining of personal information might be troubling to people who value their privacy. But in this day and age, with millions of people posting so much of their personal lives on the Internet, it’s not that far-fetched for people’s preferences in romantic partners to be easily found and used as data.

Alma has also been chosen to recommend to an ethics committee that is overseeing this experiment if having a robot like Tom is psychologically and emotionally healthy for human beings. She is required to submit her recommendation (acceptance or rejection of the project) to Dean Roger (played by Falilou Seck), who is in charge of the ethics committee. Although he’s not supposed to show his bias, he essentially tells Alma that she hopes her decision is an acceptance recommendation.

“I’m Your Man” takes place in a world where robots and holograms are already accepted in the culture as chosen companions for humans. For example, there’s a scene where Alma goes back to a bar where she sees humans on dates with holograms, and it’s considered normal. The question she has to answer for herself and the ethics committee is if it’s ethical for robots to be sold and marketed to humans as live-in partners or spouses.

One of the ways that “I’m Your Man” isn’t a typical “robot fantasy” movie is that Tom isn’t always cheerful and willing to let Alma constantly disrespect him. He talks back to her and calls her out on some of her rude and selfish actions. Because he is supposed to be attuned to her emotions, he tells Alma what he observes about her.

Alma has other things going on in her life that complicate her experiment with Tom. She’s under a lot of stress because her father (played by Wolfgang Hübsch), who doesn’t have a first name in the movie, is showing signs of early dementia. Alma has a sister named Cora (played by Annika Meier), and they both are in various forms of distress and denial over what to do with their father if or when his condition worsens.

As for her love life, Alma has an ex-boyfriend named Julian (played by Hans Löw), who also happens to be one of her co-workers. They remained friends after the breakup, but viewers will get the impression that things aren’t completely resolved between Julian and Alma. He might have lingering feelings toward her.

For example, there’s a scene where Julian asks Alma out to lunch, but she declines, and he seems disappointed. Later, Julian tells Alma that he’s moving in with his girlfriend Steffi (played by Henriette Richter-Röhl) for “mostly financial reasons.” Julian’s heart might not be completely in his relationship with Steffi, but Steffi seems completely in love with Julian. One of the funnier scenes in the movie is when Anna brings Tom as her date to Julia and Steffi’s housewarming party. It’s enough to say that things get awkward.

Stevens’ earnest portrayal of a robot doesn’t fall into a parody, but there is a slight wink and a nod to his performance. He gives enough robotic eye movements and too-perfect smiles to remind viewers that there is no soul underneath this human-looking being, even though Tom knows how to look and act human. It’s a tricky performance that Stevens handles in a very talented way.

Eggert also does an admirable performance as Alma, who is obviously the more complicated one in this would-be couple. Alma doesn’t express her thoughts as easily as Tom does. And it unnerves Alma that Tom can do an accurate psychoanalysis of her, which he does on a regular basis. She’s also conflicted because her scientific brain tells her that robots are incapable of feeling and giving love, but her lonely heart is telling her that maybe she should take unconditional emotional support and companionship wherever she can get it.

Rather than it being a one-sided relationship where Alma bosses Tom around, Tom ends up challenging Alma to look at herself and figure out what she wants out of love and what she’s willing to do to seek out or shut out certain relationships. There are several comedic moments along the way, as well as some emotionally touching dramatic moments. The overall message of “I’m Your Man” is that wishing for an ideal love mate can come at a “be careful what you wish for” price, but it might be worth it if you know who you really are in the first place.

Bleecker Street released “I’m Your Man” in select U.S. cinemas on September 24, 2021. The movie’s digital/VOD release date is October 12, 2021.

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