A Prequel to THE ZONE OF INTEREST? | Film Essay
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.พ. 2024
- An essay comparing the shared themes, cultural/historical background, and ambiguous sensibility in Michael Haneke's THE WHITE RIBBON (2009) and Jonathan Glazer's THE ZONE OF INTEREST (2023).
Review/analysis references the following materials:
FUNNY GAMES (Michael Haneke, 2007)
CACHE (Michael Haneke, 2005)
BARRY LYNDON (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
MAMMALIAN POLITICS: THACKERAY VIA KUBRICK (Robert Anton Wilson)
For educational/entertainment purposes only - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Great analysis man! I noticed that there’s a little homage to The White Ribbon in Glazer’s film: when the mother of Hedwig wakes up and the room’s only light comes from outside, from the camp. The shot when she goes to the window and then closes the curtain is like the shot when the barn is burning and the kids wake up to see it, having also the fire from outside as the only light that goes through the room
Possibly.
A horrendous master piece. I was feeling nauseous the whole movie and, funny enough, at the end when Hoss is also seeing gagging by the stairs, I truly felt that.
I couldn't stop thinking about Gaza, I've been seeing horrendous acts of violence and dehumanization for 5 months. Like Glazer said at the Oscar's, the movie should compell us to see the present and rethink wherever dehumanization takes us. We are living this film, specially the Israelis living in Tel Aviv (70 km from Gaza City) or in the Kibbutz while Gaza burns
Lic51 in 1945: "I couldn't stop thinking about Germany (and its civilian population); I've been seeing horrendous acts of violence and de-humanization (by RAF Bomber Command and the U.S. Eighth Air Force) for years. Like Glazier said at the Oscars, the movie should compel us to see the present (the strategic bombing of Germany and Japan, and our efforts to starve Japan by our own submarine campaign) and rethink wherever our dehumanization takes us. We are living this film, especially the Jews who have escaped the Final Solution, while German and Japanese cities burn."
You deserve the slow clap for this utterly thoughtless; no, malicious indeed horrendous, remark. ...You even threw in. "...in the kibbutz while Gaza burns". My God!
Talk about MASSIVE context-dropping as to why Gaza (or Germany and Japan at that time) is burning ....(which it actually isn't. The Israelis are NOT firebombing any part of Gaza, let alone nuking any part).
@@MrJm323 Exactrly. 100.000 German children died bc of the bombings. Modern people would call that genocide on Germans.
Superb analysis and writing here, the conclusion (that we are conditioned by our cultures to feel heroic while demonising the other) couldn’t be more relevant in the disconnected world of 2024. Subscribed!
Despite some formal similarities (and as strange as this may seem at first sound), *Zone of Interest* is a more optimistic film. That is not to say that it is not depicting true horror both directly and indirectly (as is *The White Ribbon* , but the Hoss family (especially the parents) that we witness is unable to elide the horrors they are perpetrating and colluding in from their consciousnesses. The reminders of the wrongs that they know they are enacting are constantly seeping from the peripheries into their lives that are focused on the banalities of existence (bureaucracies, aesthetics, recreation, conventional social interactions on multiple levels), and the audience becomes aware of their impact as the little girl is repeatedly found sleepwalking, a domestic servant is threatened with literal extermination by Frau Hoss after her mother leaves unexpectedly and she loses her composure as she loses her mother, and Herr Hoss dry heaves after receiving a promotion that serves his personal goals of upward mobility because he presumably realizes what he will have to do in order to have "earned" the "promotion". Glazer seems to be trying to convey that as humans, while capable of atrocities, we are also fundamentally social beings and as such are innately empathetic to our fellow humans. We cannot elide and repress from our consciousness and psyches what we know to be wrong on an existential level.... I am uncertain that Haneke is ever this optimistic. For Haneke, the incidents of pain detach us and alienate us from one another. *The White Ribbon* is not without hope and does show that there is good at least in some people who can help the collective, but especially as we know what is going to unfold with two world wars, *The White Ribbon* reads as a growing revenge cycle that is increasing in speed, depth and strength until the social structure breaks apart. If my readings are in any way accurate, I think Glazer may be more in dialogue with Hannah Arendt than Michael Haneke, but in either case I find more hope in his perspective, though I am less certain of his accuracy in representing the human condition, yet I am still hopeful. Strong work and interesting comparison, CineMollusk. Thank you
Apart from the girl leaving the apples at night (a true story), I don’t find Zone of Interest at all optimistic. Even Hoss’s dry heaves seem to me the result of the dimensions of the task he has been given and nerves about his career prospects if he fails.
@@somecontrol268 Fair enough. We are both employing speculation to interpret behavior, and yours is valid (imo). More than his career is in jeopardy if he fails (and, oh, that he failed) and that could be a cause of a nervous reaction such as dry heaving. His loss of composure also comes in relation (if I have the scene chronology correct) to the telephone conversation with his wife where he tells her of the promotion and that during the party he was contemplating the logistics of exterminating the guests in a room with such high ceilings (I know this is atrocious subject matter, I am sorry). Here he is contemplating doing to the Nazis (who he, being a Nazi himself, presumably perceives as the ideological "good guys") what he already regularly does to people he deems as sub-human. As ghastly and evil as his behavior is, it seems in part with the outlook of the movie, that though he may distinguish different groups of people as good or evil, he does not seem to be able to distinguish that they are not all people who all have at least a kernel of an innate value that can be wronged (as much as he tries to deny this universally human value to his perspective)... I think this is the outlook of the film. You are very free to disagree. Whether this optimism applies to the historical Hoss... I am in serious doubt, but I think Glazer is trying to point out that circumstances make people capable of almost anything, but they can't hide their unethical actions from themselves that they know to be wrong, and I think Glazer presents the Hoss family as knowing and the more they try to hide it from themselves, the more it internally ravages them. Where we do agree is that the girl leaving apples reveals optimism, in providing sustenance and hope to the human victims of egregious evil and in the face of catastrophic consequences, she is both brave and heroic and shows us what humans are capable of at our very best. Though I am rambling on... I think Glazer also questions his own perspective through the counterpoint of showing contemporary people taking care of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. These people do important custodial work where they are exposed to silent scream inducing signifiers of the atrocities that occurred there (...all those shoes...). They are in no way responsible for what happened there, but how can they face what they face on a daily/regular basis and continue to move forward and live their lives? Wouldn't it take some degree of elision and desensitization? While I think to some extent they must, they are also knowingly doing important work. Vacuuming and cleaning display windows may not seem like much, but it is an important part of helping us remember what we truly don't want to see, especially in ourselves. They are leaving apples for all of us. The museum (that seems an odd word to use here) is, in its way, like the screams of human suffering the Hoss family heard over their garden walls... they cannot be blocked out.
@@crowboggs I love your reflections and it makes me love the film even more that it sparks discussions such as these. Your mention of Hoss seeing himself as one of the “good guys” made me smile. One of the thoughts that went through my mind as he looked down that long black corridor to the pinpoint of light was that he was having a Mitchell and Webb moment of uncertainty from the “Are we the baddies, Hans?” sketch. It is one of those immortal moments of comedy saying so much in three minutes. But I digress, I really treasure your interpretation of the museum scene and particularly “they are leaving apples for all of us”. I so feared for that little girl in that sequence, at once a real person but also a symbol of human decency. So frail in the face of a mighty military and commercial machine. She is the answer to “what can one person do?” in the face of enormous evil. A question I ask myself every day from the comfort of my home. Glazer set out to unnerve and disrupt us. I feel the film is a masterpiece.
@@somecontrol268 ❤ Best of luck and skill to you
They’re both strong films open to interpretation. I enjoyed your viewpoint thank you. I think what they both do well is attempt to capture the context of where and how evil brews. They show how it’s a co creation and doesn’t arise from nowhere in a society. Haneke looks into how the children were being raised with puritanical and very rigid outlook that sewed the seeds for conformity and ignorance. Glazer shows how in order for evil to function on such a large scale it needs to be compartmentalised and embedded in bureaucracy and ideology so it is hidden in plain sight. I think both directors are not making dogmatic statements about human nature but exploring what perverts human nature. Even predatory animals will mostly only kill when it’s necessary, there’s a high level of brainwashing and manipulation of the mind in both films outlooks. People are working against their intuition and heart even if it’s on a subconscious level. Both films show the fact that the perpetrators are repressing feelings of empathy and understanding and it’s a means to an end kind of philosophy. I found glazers a little darker with its tie to the present as it was asking where are you complicit in your society which is a very valuable question.
Thank you for the suggestion of The White Ribbon!
Oh wow, I thought I recognized this actor. I didn't realize he was from The White Ribbon. Another Film that works as a companion piece to Zone of Interest is a Hungarian Film from 2015 called Son of Saul.
totally agree. from different perspectives. white ribbon shows the roots of nazism. the children in the movie are the future nazis. son of saul shows it from the eyes of a jewish prisoner and zone of interest shows it from the eyes of a nazi general. all three movies are masterpieces
He’s also in the brilliant series Babylon Berlin.
@@Auldreekie967That is a great TV series. Pre-Nazi (or Nazi adjacent) Weimar Republic
Nice catch, just saw The Zone Of Interest yesterday and it immediately reminded me of The White Ribbon
Agree. I hadn‘t seen the zone of interest yet, only the trailer, but I remembered almost immediately the white ribbon, too. It is a prequel, as far as the violence and cruelness against children leads to generations of perpetrators.
The White Ribbon
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Shining
Jeanne Dielmann
I watched The White Ribbon twice and both times I found the depiction of the children as confounding and somewhat unsettling. Then I read an interview with Haneke where he explained that he was looking at the roots of nazi ideology and these were some of the children who would grow up to embrace it.
Once again. I only went to see the Barbie movie because of your comparitive analysis with it and Under The Skin. Now I believe I must go see The Zone of Interest, or at least The White Ribbon. This is the most underrated channel for cinema on TH-cam. Fantastic work, and thank you.
Thank you very much for an excellent and very thought provoking analysis. In so far as my opinion matters, I’m very quickly coming to the conclusion that The Zone of Interest is a major work of art.
I watched Zone of Interest, but one of the most curious scenes occurs when Hedwig wakes up to learn her mother has departed over night from their estate in Auschwitz. In the kitchen she finds a note possibly from her mother, who knows? and perhaps an explanation of why she left, the audience has no clue what was written, but from the look on Hedwig's face, there is no emotion, perhaps surprise, Hedwig's mother was alarmed by the cinders in the air and the loud screams & gunfire at night, prompting her to leave.
I agree the whole business with the mother reveals so much. Hedwig is so pleased her mother is visiting for the first time and eager to show how successful she is as a model wife, mother, interior decorator, gardener, manager. Her mother has previously been a cleaner, employed by a Jewish woman and Hedwig is visibly anxious for her mother to be proud of her upward mobility. She even installed central heating because the winters are so unbearably cold a comment which really made me shudder and think of conditions over the fence. Hedwig no longer hears the gunshots or smells the smoke or is kept awake by the fires, much like people who live near Heathrow never hear the planes after a while. Her mother chokes on the air and is kept awake by the noise and red sky. The beautiful pink bedroom cannot disguise any of that. Hedwig immediately destroys the note with a look that says I will never please my mother. She can barely control her anger that her mother has punctured her dream of perfection and she proceeds to take it out on everyone. We have all seen scenes like these played out in other settings and they really fill in the character of Hedwig.
She then tossed the piece of paper into the incinerator
No the scenes of the mother awake at night suggested she had started to become really unsettled by the reality of what was happening over the wall. @@ingridfitz5677
I was also struck by this scene. Hedwing wanted her mum to be impressed with daughter who achieved some social promotion, one step higher on the ladder. Her mum, working class, seemed to be so familiar. Maybe, because she stayed in Germany and saw only that her former Jewish lady employeer 'disappeared' and that she thought she still 'is' in the camp, showed her naive disconnect from the Nazi ideology? I can't help the feeling that deep down in her heart she was decent, at least less materialistic and indifferent than Hedwig.
Didn't think of the Barry Lyndon connection until now but it makes everything click into place. Passive observational approach; an attempt at total emersion in the period and location and a dispassionate look at awful people
Brilliant, persuasive comparison. Well done!
Interesting you said this; I got Haneke vibes while watching Zone of Interest and wondered if anyone else felt the same
this is excellent and very insightful.
A superb and sadly far too brief analysis of two remarkable films both of which are indelibly etched on my mind. The distance they cultivate utilise can be alienating but is far more effective than the confected drama of most mainstream fare. Also as Hitchcock so adeptly displayed, suggestion is far more potent than the literal and obvious, enabling the imagination to run riot.
thanks,must watch BarryLyndon again with fresh eyes.
Thanks for this brilliant analysis. So thought provoking. Props to you !
The White Ribbon is excellent!x
Thank you for such an insightful and revealing video. I'd seen White Ribbon many years back and I can see that connection to The Zone of Interest that you have espoused. Have you read Martin Amis' novel? He fictionalises the story more by including dialogue and he focuses more on inter-personal relationships between a wider range of characters, but he too essentiallly stays outside the camp, away from the torture and executions - save, perhaps one scene where Marty also uses sound to invoke the horror. It's a different approach to Glazer's film, but it's also an effective one.
did not expect the RAW cameo!
hail eris.
I don't know, though. I struggle with the uncomplicated privilege this analysis gives to a detached gaze, all but dismissing emotional involvement as a "low" and less useful or productive framing that by definition reduces tales of atrocity to easy morality tales. This detached, Kubrickian gaze is a kind of high art intellectual aesthetic that is one way to parse the horrors we perpetrate on each other, but certainly not the only. Case in point: I saw recently Anthropoid, about 3 (or maybe just 2?) assassins who infiltrated occupied Prague with the mission to assassinate SS General Reinhard Heydrich. Emotional, somewhat conventionally structured underdog versus big bad guy Hollywood story, but I certainly wouldn't say it reduced that story to an easy morality tale. I appreciate that Glazer, Hanneke and Kubrick all effectively complicate and disrupt this conventional storytelling and expose things in a newly devastating way, but I stop short of what this critique too easily concludes, that it's somehow superior to affect a dispassionate, deracinated gaze on horror.
Now you have me wondering if I've fallen into the same good/bad, either/or trap that I was arguing against, thus exposing some aesthetic prejudices. I may have overstated my position slightly. Thanks so much for your insight, and I'll make sure to check out Anthropoid.
Completely agreed. I'll take 'A Schindler's List' a million times over 'Zone of Interest' and 'The White Ribbon' as I think engaged visceral sentiment is the correct reaction to horror, not detached indifference.
@@vodkatonyqi think that what schindler’s list and the white ribbon/zoi are trying to do is three completly different things. Schindler’s list is trying to get you to empathise with the victims and put you in their shoes. White ribbon on the other hand is exploring the social, economic, political and family systems that led to those atrocities and zoi is maybe trying to hold a mirror at us and try to show us similarities between us and the perpetrators. It all depends on what you’re interested. For a movie about the experience of the victims, i very much prefer son of saul to schindler’s list
Agree with much of what you say, but feel it is important to have both Schindler’s List and Son of Saul. There is no one right way to convey the enormity of the holocaust. Son of Saul is an incredible achievement and the images have been seered into my brain. But I also have never forgotten the image of the toddler in the red coat in Schindler’s List. Yes it is not subtle but it has reached many more people and probably will continue to do so.
excellent stuff, cant believe i did not notice the connections, but then again havent seen white ribbon in a decade lol
Excellent analysis, describing the difference between an art film and entertainment.
I didn't make the connection between the films until seeing this analysis. I think it is keenly expressed and valuable.
There was a similarity. Actually, I could not finish the White Ribbon because of the feeling of dread. It frightened the life out of me. Zone of Interest I watched easily. Although some things made me feel sick. The teeth and the coat for some reason. I think I saw a rich Jewish woman wearing a fur coat in Schindler's List or Black Book. Or The Pianist.
Had mentioned the complementary relationship of the two films at a couple other forums. Glad you also noticed it as well. Neither hit you over the head with their provocative points.
Great point of view!
It's very interesting to compare the two films, particularly as Haneke has previously said that the idea of making a film about this subject is 'unspeakable.'
thanks for the video
Thank you!
The actual Hoss villa really was right next to Auschwitz I.
The kid in the White Ribbon is Ingmar Bergman.
Wow!
Really excellent. I made the connection to The White Ribbon as well. I wonder if Glazer did this intentionally?
amazing video. do you have any link for the "robert anton wilson reviews barry lyndon" thing ?
that was something.
It's from an essay in The Illuminati Papers titled Mammalian Politics.
Uncle Amos said relax... it is just a movie.
Great video, you gained a subscriber I hope that you keep doing this. Greetings from Argentina
Love Barry Lyndon
Underrated Kubrick
Please discuss the movie Birth also by Jonathan Glazer. This movie has the most tragic ending of any movie I have ever seen, and I don't know why I feel that way.
Thanks for the suggestion. I love Birth and I will get around to it.
Once again, I have all major streaming services and none offer this film with subscription.
Glazer's symmetrical compositions are similar to those of Wes Anderson.
Zone of interest looked like a Haneke film to me, it is a good movie dont get me wrong but there is a lot of hype.
You'll be surprised who can/could behave like Rudolf when giving Power/Authority.
This would have been a perfect double bill.
Well I mean that could also be for any World War II film though.
Brought back another movie I saw the boy in the striped pajamas very similar
Another great analysis. Watching it I wondered if you thought the boys in Funny Games were descendants of both films. Then you mentioned it. I was also struck by what you said at the end about putting ourselves into the equation and watching what is going on around us. Today is 3 days after an attempted assassination of Donald Trump and I am greatly worried what we will do.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think we should be observant, and do whatever we think is right without becoming too emotionally involved with our own beliefs. There would be a lot less regrettable behavior that way. Just my opinion.
ja we easily forget our true nature is yet animalistic at its core and that´s where we really be connected to nature still...
unofficial prequel to zone HBOs' 2001 conspiracy
Folks - these are movies
Decay of society happens with decay of spirituality, Barry Lyndon duel with Bullington happens in dilapidated old church with pigeons and birdshit around, first duel happens in open field (opening scene Barry father been killed) second Barry with officers with blanks over girls heart again wars means human morality goes down to lowest animalistic level. Barry Lyndon The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment also known as the Age of Reason, that was highest point of technological revolution which lead to industrial revolution Pure reason (rationality) killed God in Nychean sense 2001 Space Odyssey starts with music Zarathustra Waltz. Graf de Sad been rehabilitated as person of reason, Newtonian philosophy Mathematica principia becomes guidance for machine manufacture for victory PhD - philosophy of Nature becomes Practicality of materialism.
Biggest irony that 7 year war (1756-1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European countries or WW0 happened in age of Reason. It is like a joke but it is true.
I don't understand Germans land of thinkers and philosophers can not understand rationality between philosophy, Nature laws (property of physics chemistry biology) and applicable science - tool manufacture including weapons. 100% Germans in WWI and WWII been involved only in material scientific progress and they thought that they have monopoly on that.
Mick Jagger in the role of Alex in The Clockwork Orange was one of the choice. Barry and Bullington Duel mentions satisfaction and Jagger never gets satisfaction :) Maybe war is about some animalistic satisfaction.
Likely most anything from that era in Germany will somewhat have that feel because that's how it really was just regular people living regular lives forced to adapt and tolerate the moral decline of society your Jewish neighbors who you saw regularly for years who owned shops and were regular members of society one day were just abducted and tortured and starved the next and there were severe penalties for hiding or helping them too I'm sure though many Nazis were monsters many of them were reluctant about it but also helpless.
Devoted Husband? lol
Great analysis; it lacks the religious theme though.
Protestantism is the egg of the snake.
Those monsters were Luther’s children.
Thanks and yes, that preoccupation with purity in WR is key.
Jesua man. Chill
Any of us who think this could not be us should look at what is going on in Gaza right now and think about our role in all of that.
And, so, what is your role in all that?
Using the children in Gaza to protect the perpetrators of October 7th?
Any thoughtful person would realize that the culpable party for the deaths of innocents in Gaza are the genocidal, totalitarian fanatics who launched an attack whose main focus was the murder of women and children at the nearby communities and even at a concert. Any sensible person would avoid morally equating the deliberate targeting of civilian non-combatants (which is what Hamas did) with the infliction of collateral casualties among the civilians of the aggressor party (which is what you could blame Israel for doing).
What Israel is doing is similar to what the U.S. and Britain did to German and Japanese civilians in World War II. ....Are you going to morally equate Rudolf Hoess with Arthur 'Bomber' Harris (head of British Bomber Command) which inflicted the fire bombings of Hamburg and Dresden? ....Except, of course, that Israel is NOT doing what Arthur Harris did (or Curtis LeMay did in Japan). They have not taken their aerial attacks to that level.
@@MrJm323That doesn’t wash any more. Israel is over - it can’t be saved.
The german series D A R K is superior in every way to these and all and everything 💎
Free Palestine!
@@frankthecat1660שלום בישול ישראל
Free IRAN! Free CHINA! FREE CUBA! Free Saudi Arabia! Free RUSSIA!
...from Hamas and others of your ilk.
@@MrJm323 Wanting Palestine to be free does not mean you're pro terrorist, unlike being an Israel supporter who has normalized terrorism.
@@deesee6009 That was MY point.
Wanting Palestine to be free means wanting the people of Palestine to be free -- free from totalitarian, genocidal groups like Hamas.
Israel supporters are opposed to terrorism and support the State of Israel -- a state based on the rule of law, which has an independent judiciary, a legislature with multiple parties (that don't try to kill each other), and with regular elections.
This is probably the only state in the Middle East where ARABS have protected civil rights (as individual human beings). Just ask the nearly TWO MILLION Arab Israelis.