My first viewing did not yield an outcome that i was expecting. But the climax did create an unexpected impact and it was lingering in my thoughts. So went for a second viewing, when i heard that it won the Oscars. It did make a lot of sense on the directors radical reinvention and the hidden nuances in the story telling.
The banality of evil is captured with no act of violence depicted visually in the film. Its all about sound you keep on hearing in the background. This is Holocaust movie taken to a different level. The film is fictionalized account set at Auschwitz (a notorious concentration camp) and focuses on the life Nazi commandant Rudolf and his family. We never see the victims of this genocide. Rather we watch the lives of the people who commit it.
The Zone of Interest (immediate area around the concentration camp) is minimalist but it leaves a long lasting impact. You dont get any expression of guilt from the main characters. That is the complex part of the story and that portrayal leaves chills. The film is trying to ask questions about modern humanity and empathy. The camp in the background and a arthouse provocation. The ending is a sober and unsettling one with mind and body behaving the opposite way. When conscience fails the history repeats.
Verdict - 3.5/5 (The Garden Wall)