Saw this on Friday night and can't shake a few aspects of it. Deeply moving, deeeeeeeply disturbing film.
Can't say I've seen anything quite like it. Glad I waited to hear anything about how it was made until after I saw it.

Not Crap, and also, holy shit.

andyman wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2024 4:52 am I saw it last night and I'm on the fence. The sound design was, as is typical for Glazer, exceptional, but I feel like so much of the film demonstrates things I'd already heard of or seen on film (rifling through prisoners' goods, domestic staff, violent kids games).
It's good, but it's not hitting me the way I'm seeing others talk about.

Leaning towards this, tempered by Glazer not typically doing much for me anyway, and still on an All Of Us Strangers comedown.

It's good though. I'd recommend seeing it. NC.

I read about 1/3 of a really arch and academic Bad Review on substack or some shit, last week.

2500 words about how the camera work was too static or summat.

I was struck by the glib dismissal on aesthetic grounds of a movie about middle-class aspirations being enough of a motivator to excuse the ACTUAL HOLOCAUST in 20MF24.

I still need to see the movie, but I was reminded of something that was said here, and I recall it from my stress-addled memory:

I would bet that I could give you a gold bar that sucks dick on command and you'd say that it had the wrong kind of mustache. Or something like that.

I think it's brilliant. I already knew the story of Goss, etc. Didn't matter.

Under the Skin is also amazing and great.

Count me in the 'it's brilliant' camp, but I can appreciate it may do nothing for some people. I was very uncomfortable when I left the cinema, but it's not an obviously horrific film (in the UK its rating would allow kids to see it), although the family are subtley shown to be quite disturbed. It's a bit like the The White Ribbon I suppose.

dontfeartheringo wrote: I read about 1/3 of a really arch and academic Bad Review on substack or some shit, last week.

The few negative reviews I've seen have been disappointingly poor quality. Enjoy, for example, this New York Times review which seems to object to ... it being well made? Not showing Höss goose stepping over corpses?

When you know Hoss was directly responsible for murdering 3 million people the film becomes absolutely horrifying.

The most important movie in years. I’ll try not to emit spoilers, but what really stuck out was the atrophy of the father, brought to the scene on the stairwell. It was the physical embodiment of the horror trapped inside.

Maybe I’ll take a teensy break from the holocaust agitprop cycle.

Excellent. I can’t help to wonder how the film would have landed if I went into it completely blind, with no idea what the film was about. I watched it Amazon, so it had yellow descriptive subtitles at the top of the screen along with the English subtitles at the bottom. Like (gunshot) or (scream) If I turned them off and watched it blind, I wonder how many distant gunshots would it have taken before I realized that they were gunshots. Definitely, will watch it again.

I really enjoyed it, but I've liked all of Jonathan Glazer's films. He has that rare talent of getting images/scenes to stay in your head long after it's over - the burglary in Sexy Beast, the long-tracking shot of the jogger at the start of Birth, the ending scene in the woods from Under the Skin. For The Zone of Interest, I keep thinking of the final scene on the stairwell.
Has anyone read the Martin Amis novel? I heard that this is very loosely based on it.