Even if Jonathan Glazer’s name doesn’t ring a bell, you’re almost certainly familiar with his work. After all, it was he who directed the famous video for Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai, and also collaborated with Radiohead and Blur. The format of music videos alone turned out to be too tight for the creator, so he moved on to full-length films. His «Be in My Skin» and «Birth» are outstanding, very specific films that definitely deserve attention. «Area of Interest» continues Glazer’s experimental tradition. In our review, we will tell you how the movie turned out.
Genre biographical drama
Director Jonathan Glaser
Starring Sandra Güller, Christian Friedel, Ralf Herfort, Imogen Kogge
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2024
Website IMDb
The story of the film centers around the not-so-ordinary family of Rudolf Göss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of the «Auschwitz» concentration camp. He, his wife Hedwig (Sandra Güller) and their children try to live peacefully in their expensive estate. They grow flowers, celebrate various holidays and make plans for the future. But they are separated from «Auschwitz» by a high wall, so the family’s everyday life is accompanied by the screams of prisoners, gunshots and other horrors of the Holocaust.
«Area of Interest» — a difficult, complex, complex movie. And in every sense, from the preparation for filming to the smallest details of the sound level and individual details of the filming locations. It is very difficult to talk about it, but even this feels natural. After all, it was definitely infinitely harder to create something of this level.
For example, let’s take the technical execution of the movie. Once again, Glazer decided not to limit himself, but this time he did not limit the cast either. That’s why the director used several fixed cameras to shoot the film, which he placed in different parts of the recreation of the Hess estate. All the cameras were working simultaneously, and the actors were free to act as they pleased. The director described this approach as «Big Brother in a Nazi house».
This technique created a special mood for the movie. Despite the acting talents of local stars, the very structure of the camera gives the film an atmosphere of watching something that no one was supposed to see. But the viewer seems to be forced to look at the life of an «ordinary» family, i.e. the most ideological Nazi family.
And the most surprising thing is that, out of context, life here is really ordinary. Hedwig’s mother comes to visit to be happy for her daughter, the children play in the yard and relax by the river. But it is the contexts that convey the inhuman, almost supernatural horror of the situation.
Glaser deliberately does not show us the murders, torture, and other nuances of everyday life in «Auschwitz». But you can’t protect yourself from them, even when you’re a concentration camp commandant. They seep into civilian life, they remind you of yourself.
The more cynical and vile the protagonists seem, the more they don’t even ignore the deaths of the people around them, but use them to their advantage. For example, Hedwig, without any qualms, takes the belongings of prisoners who were captured in a concentration camp.
While watching the movie, one may recall the concept of «the banality of evil», but the film shows us evil that is not banal at all. Göss does not just follow orders and try to live his life. He uses the ideology of the Third Reich to his advantage, and feels nothing when people are executed and their remains burned in the crematorium. For his family, the war has turned into a routine, like breakfast or an evening walk. And that makes it even more terrifying.
At the same time, «Area of Interest» doesn’t read you any moral lessons, hardly shows you «the other side» and generally tries to remain neutral. But it is precisely this vector of the story’s development that allowed it to become even more eerie. After all, the life of the Göss family cannot be called correct or normal. Especially when a little boy plays with the teeth of the dead, and makes the comment «don’t do that again» about the shooting of a man.
Horror is present in the film all the time, but it manifests itself mostly in the soundtrack. Constant gunshots, screams, commands from the guards in the concentration camp. In the sounds, it seems that a completely different movie unfolds, created for you by your own imagination. And this is another way in which «Area of Interest» interacts with your consciousness. One of the many ways.
The sound design of cinema in general is on some otherworldly level. Every sound here goes straight into your mind, and the general mood of the movie is similar to horror. The production as a whole is also reminiscent of horror films. Only the horrors here are quite real and based on historical evidence. Glazer spent several years studying all the documents and available data about the Nazi atrocities in «Auschwitz».
The director’s desire for realism is evident in everything. For example, the film is technically based on a book by Martin Amis with the same title. But the book had fictionalized characters, and Glazer decided to use real characters. The color palette adds to the film’s realism. The team used only natural and practical light.
The movie has enough strange, provocative, sad — and almost any kind of scene. This is the kind of movie for which the genre of «a three-hour video essay about a one-and-a-half-hour movie» exists. Because you can find enough interesting information about the story of its creation for a series of documentary videos. And the ideas in the script are based on the bloody history of mankind, so they cannot be taken lightly.
How can such a movie be evaluated at all? Or rather — criticize it? For example, Sandra Güller’s acting is again outstanding here, but in «Anatomy of a Fall» she revealed herself better. And the lack of a clear moral in these difficult times may also be a disadvantage for some. As well as the slightly strange pace, as well as the almost complete absence of events throughout the story. But all this works within the framework of the movie itself as a work of art. An art that is cruel and unprincipled, but so important.
P. S. Additionally, this film plays with new colors in the context of the war with Russia. Because in so many places, there are parallels with «ordinary» Russians.