Area of interest it was the most radical film ever seen in the competition of the last edition of Cannes Film Festivalwith the Holocaust shown differently.
It might take a while to uncover the coiled barbed wire at the top of that remote garden wall. Also, the smoke from the chimneys is not that clear.
The family of Nazi commander Rudolf Höss lives in a villa next to Auschwitz, and you can see the smoke coming from the chimney where the murdered bodies are incinerated, or from the locomotives of the trains that bring the deportees to that complex in occupied Poland, the largest extermination center of the Third Reich.
The film, which aspires to 5 Oscarsincluding best film and director, is the work of director Jonathan Glazer, the Englishman who surprised us 23 years ago with The wild beastand who now talks about other human beings with animal behaviors.
Christian Friedel plays the Nazi leader who moves his family to a villa near the Auschwitz concentration camp. Photo diamond filmsAlready during the opening credits everything is disturbing. There’s music and strange sounds and it’s hard to define what you’re seeing on the screen. So yes, the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife live with their children in a kind of small villa… next to the concentration camp.
Glazer recounts with surprising simplicity the life of that marriage and the education of their five children, who while they are in the garden see different types of smoke.
Children play and hear desperate calls for help, screams of officers ordering executions. The film, focusing on marriage, also talks about selfishness, irresponsibility and cold attitude towards death.
Sandra Hüller is the wife of the family. The German actress is nominated for an Oscar, but for “Antomy of a Fall”.But Area of interest -Glazer very freely adopted the book of his compatriot Martin Amis, who died at the film’s Cannes premiere – he never shows any form of explicit violence.
Glazer would never put his camera over the concrete wall that separated the family from the death camp.
Moment of tension
The only moment of tension comes when Hedwig, the commander’s wife, scolds a maid for a puddle of water on the floor.
The garden, the swimming pool and, behind the wall, Auschwitz.The Holocaust is a difficult issue to address, and it has been addressed in the most diverse ways Life is Beautifulby and with Roberto Benigni, a The boy in the striped pajamaswhich in a certain sense “denied” to some of the protagonists the horror that surrounded them in the concentration camps.
It could be a nod to the girl in the red coat Schindler’s List the scene where you see with thermal images a child stealing food and leaving it for the Jews?
Here it is not disavowed, and the evil that is perceived leaves no room for misunderstanding or doubt. Rudolf and Hedwig transformed that house into an idyllic home. Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller (Oscar nominee, but for Anatomy of a fall) they seem like a perfect match. The question is to clarify what happens behind closed doors.
“Area of interest”
UK/US/Poland, 2023. Original title: “The area of interest”. 104′, SAM 13. From: Jonathan Glazer. With: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller, Johann Karthaus, Max Beck. Rooms: Hoyts Abasto and Unicenter, Cinemark Palermo, Cinépolis Recoleta, Showcase Belgrano, Norcenter and Haedo.
Source: Clarin
