Summary : Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig strive to build a dream life for their family in a house with a garden next to the camp.
Observe : The area of interest is a shocking counterpart to all the films that have been released so far holocaust.
With an impressive command of the environment, decorations and lighting, Jonathan Glazer comes to petrify us in our places 107 minutes. We are drawn into a film that is not a single one, namely the everyday life of the family of a high-ranking officer SS. We are spectators of their lives. No visual prominence, no narrative element that disrupts this family’s everyday life. Nothing special except the vile and painful bile of the holocaust. The incessant shooting, the howling, the noise of the crematorium ovens, the arrival of the deportation locomotives… All of the background music underlines the macabre spectacle that the film offers us. But we will never face reality, the English filmmaker prefers the terrible effect of sound. The choice for the film about the murder has already been made from Utoya which is still extremely effective.
The main characters also embody in a great way the disgust that the people of this time show us: the ridicule, the striving for a good life, the denigration of Jews and people who are not like us, but also the veneration of the great, cruel German personalities . and generous.
Glazier doesn’t hesitate to play around with the editing just to make us more uncomfortable. Long black screens, blood-red screens, destabilizing close-ups with accentuation of the background sound, quite intoxicating bursts of sound… We can only watch this life-sized cinematic hour in bliss. The only big disadvantage : A weak stomach in the middle of the film can plunge dropouts into harmful boredom.
However, even if we weren’t thrilled from start to finish The area of interest asks you to pay constant attention, Jonathan Glazer Here is a very great film that absolutely deserves its Palme d’Or.