Tag: Sandra Hüller

The Zone of Interest (2023)

Chilling Holocaust film, its unseen horrors only overheard give it supreme power

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Cast: Christian Friedel (Rudolf Höss), Sandra Hüller (Hedwig Höss), Ralph Herforth (Oswald Pohl), Daniel Holzberg (Gerard Maurer), Sascha Maaz (Arthur Liebehenschel), Freya Kreutzkam (Elenore Pohl), Imogen Kogge (Linna Hensel), Johann Karthaus (Klaus Höss), Lilli Falk (Heidetraut Höss), Louis Noah Wite (Hans-Jurgen Höss)

A family enjoys the delights of a summer day beside the river. They laugh, splash each other with water and amble home to their villa, next to where father works. They tune out the all-too-familiar sounds of that workplace to enjoy a family dinner. They are living the dream, out of the city, with a home and beautiful, landscaped garden. The family is Rudolf Höss’. The workplace is Auschwitz. The sounds are of the unimaginable horrors that make their life possible.

Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust movie is unlike any other ever made. Taking a Martin Amis novel as inspiration, Glazer creates a hauntingly observant film where the plot is simple (Höss works at Auschwitz, the family enjoys a series of everyday events, Höss gets re-posted, his wife remains in their home, Höss later returns to continue his work) but every single frame implies never-seen horrifying events. While the family are indifferent to the distant sounds of trains arriving, industrial churn, gunshots and screams, we can’t be. The only thing that separates the Höss’ heaven of their intricate garden and charming home from the hell of Auschwitz is a single wall.

Glazer’s film never leaves the house for the camp, meaning what we hear is our only clue to what is happening. The Zone of Interest uses sound like almost no other film I’ve seen. Sound designer Johnnie Burns creates an overwhelming soundscape that suggests horrors. The low rumble of industrial sound, the background hum of screams and cracks of gunshot, ignored by the family as white noise. It’s brilliant and sickeningly immersive that never for an instant lets you forget where we are. Glazer complements this with half-seen sights, the most striking the steam of a train arriving visible over the wall of the house, that add to our grim knowledge of what’s happening out of shot.

Glazer lets events play out with a chilling naturalism. Shot on concealed digital cameras with no artificial lighting, there is very little studied here at all. Instead, everything plays out with a terrifyingly low-key sense of reality. Conversations are at times mumbled, movements have a mix of casual and procedural and everything is kept determinedly undramatic. What emerges is the mundane, character-less nature of the Hösses. These people are evil in the sense that the wickedness of their deeds hasn’t even crossed their minds. Two sociopaths who pride themselves on their respectability, presiding over an industrial killing machine.

The film brilliantly balances a lack of overt events with acres of horrific implication. Fishing with his children, Höss steps on a half-seen jaw-bone and suddenly plucks them from the lake, running home with them to practically bleach them clean with the servants left to scrub the bathroom – it’s never stated that human remains are being washed from them, but the look on the face of these servants speaks volumes. (Höss later records a coded memo chastising his team for their lack of care, like a middle manager furious at an untidy storage room.) Hedwig’s mother wakes at night with her room flooded with red light. Opening a curtain to investigate, the camera sees her look of horror, a handkerchief covering her nose, while we only see the faint reflection of flames on the window. Moments like this fill the film, the implications of horrors out of shot.

At its heart, Zone of Interest brings startlingly to life Rudolf Höss, a man who admitted to murdering millions but wanted it known he did not tolerate overt cruelty to his victims. Played with a precise blankness by Christian Friedel, you realise if Hitler had charged him with organising the Reich’s stationary he would have gone about it with the same commitment and passion-free precision as he does mass murder. Does Höss have any idea, deep down, of his vileness? As he carefully, obsessively marches around the house every night shutting off lights and closing doors, is he subconsciously trying to defend his family and shut out reality, bury his knowledge of his evil in household procedure, or is he just as obsessive about this as he is in everything else?

His wife, played with a middle-class, aspirational coldness by Sandra Hüller, seems to have convinced herself she can enjoy all the benefits of the life of an Auschwitz camp commandant, without needing to think seriously about where it comes from. She tries on luscious clothing, brought to her from the camp, and obsessively tends and cares for her garden. Not that it stops her from lashing out at her servants like a petty tyrant. So devoted to her home is she, she refuses to leave it on Höss’ transfer back to Berlin, believing it to be the perfect place to raise her children.

It’s the children that subtly bear the brunt. As the film progresses, the damage to them becomes more and more clear, especially after Höss is reassigned and his attempts to control the environment are ignored by his successor. The daughter who cannot sleep at night, constantly walking the house. The younger son who overhears the forced drowning of a victim and mimics the guard’s cruel authoritarian “humour”. The older son who locks his brother in the greenhouse and mimics the hissing noise of gas. The Höss family are laying the roots to destroy their family in their obsessive desire to build a blinkered perfect home for them.

There is only one note of true kindness in The Zone of Interest. During his research, Glazer discovered a young Polish girl made it her mission to leave fruit at night for the inmates, hidden throughout the camp. Glazer captures this with thermal imaging cameras (eager to maintain his “rule” of no artificial light), giving this girl a sort of mystical, fairy-tale quality (we once even see her while hearing Höss read to his children at night). However, even this act of kindness is corrupted – the forced drowning is caused by a fight over an apple, presumably left by this child.

The Zone of Interest does lose some of its impact when it follows Höss to Berlin – it’s a film that flourishes best as a claustrophobic piece, focused on the house and its grounds. You could argue that The Zone of Interest is effectively a short film, expanded into feature length, making the same point over again. But, on reflection, part of the point is the power of the thudding repetition of that message, the overwhelming impact of people indifferently carrying on in the face of pure evil.

Does Höss realise this on some level? The Zone of Interest concludes with Höss dry-retching on the stairs – he’s such a shell he doesn’t even have enough in him to vomit up – before seeming to stare right out at us into the darkness. Glazer then finally takes us into the camp – to see the museum it is today, quiet, still, tended to with care by the staff. Höss’ life’s work is to create a memorial to his barbarity, where dedicated staff will make sure the picture of evil remains unblemished by dirt. It’s the first-time sound really drains out of the film and it makes for a powerful moment.

The Zone of Interest really lingers with the viewer. Glazer’s subtle and unflashy work builds the film into a powerful experience piece that leaves a lasting impact. It’s a film that grows even more powerful as you unpack the subtleties of its exploration of the banal nature of cruelty and the lasting impact of inhumanity on ourselves and others. A truly unique and important film.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Brilliant courtroom drama, full of enigmatic questions around the nature of truth

Director: Justine Triet

Cast: Sandra Hüller (Sandra Voyter), Swann Arlaud (Vincent Renzi), Milo Machado-Graner (Daniel Maleski), Antoine Reinartz (the Prosecutor), Samuel Theis (Samuel Maleski), Jehnny Beth (Marge Berger), Saadia Bentaieb (Nour), Camille Rutherford (Zoé Solidor), Anne Rotger (the President)

What is a trial? A forum for discovering the truth? Or a theatre where the best story wins? Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning courtroom drama, explores this and takes its place as one of the finest courtroom films made. Complex, fascinating and compelling, it asks searching questions about the unknowable nature of truth. Presenting only perspectives, recollections and conflicting inferences based on the same handful of facts, it places the viewer in the same position as the jury: ultimately we must choose a version of the truth “we can live with”.

The trial revolves around the death of Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis), lecturer and amateur house renovator, discovered dead by his son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) having fallen from the attic of their Grenoble chalet. Did he fall, jump or was he pushed? Suspicions fall on the only suspect: his wife, famous novelist Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller). Sandra’s story doesn’t quite stack up and her assurance that they were in a difficult but loving relationship isn’t supported by the facts. A dramatic court case begins, in which both the prosecutor (Antoine Reinartz) and Sandra’s lawyer, old friend Vincent (Swann Arlaud), lay out compelling, but utterly conflicting versions of Sandra and Samuel’s marriage, with their son Daniel (the only real witness) caught horrifically in the middle.

Anatomy of a Fall only shows us facts that a jury could have. We open no more than an hour before the fateful event, with Sandra’s interview at home with a young student (Camille Rutherford) halted by an unseen Samuel playing an instrumental cover of 50 Cent’s P.I.M.P. at deafening volume. Is his playing of loud music an everyday event (as Sandra says) or a passive aggressive move designed to disrupt the interview of a wife he is jealous of? We don’t know because we never get to see their subsequent confrontation, as we follow Daniel walking his dog, returning find Samuel’s body.

This sets the tone for the superbly uneasy courtroom drama that follows. Throughout, Samuel is literally a ghost. The film finally shows him only when a recording he made of a vicious argument between the couple is played to the courtroom. Triet cuts from the courtroom to a flashback so we can see Sandra and Samuel’s increasingly heated conversation, where he condemns her for selfishly dominating their lives, while she accuses him of a martyr complex and blaming her for his own failures. But the second the recording hits a disputed physical clash we cut back to the courtroom and hear only the sounds themselves and their interpretations from prosecution and defence.

Those interpretations are effectively stories, and Anatomy of a Fall makes it clear a compelling and relatable story is essential. Taking a leaf from Anatomy of a Murder (a clear inspiration), it’s less the facts and more the presentation that is likely to win either conviction or acquittal. Vincent carefully coaches Sandra on her version of events – the loving relationship turned sour by her husband’s depression, bought on by his guilt for the accident that left their son visually impaired – advising her on tone, wording and when to stress certain points and which to avoid. He flatly tells her an accident is something “I don’t believe” and stresses their only chance is to establish Samuel’s suicidal intent. Lawyers aren’t paid to find the truth: they are paid to secure verdicts.

There is an added complexity as Sandra, a German, must conduct the trial in French, her third language, rather than her preferred second language of English. Language is itself a topic of debate in the marriage – her French husband Samuel accuses Sandra of forcing him and French-speaking Daniel to meet on her preferred ground of English, rather than improve her French. She counters that English makes them all equal, speaking a second language. In the trial, Sandra struggles to articulate her points, floundering for precise words. Eventually the pressures of the trial force her to revert to English, which is then translated for the rest of the court.

Superbly played by Sandra Hüller, Sandra is an assured professional, struggling to understand how she has ended up in this position. She can be distant and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Unspoken as it is, it’s clear for police and prosecution she doesn’t fit their profile of a grieving widow. Every beat of Hüller’s performance is brilliantly open to interpretation: is she anxious about the pressure on her son, or scared about what he might say? Is she filled with stoic regret or did she never care for her husband? Even when she switches to English in the court, is this a result of pressure or because it is easier for her to elaborate a story in this language?

The truth is increasingly sidelined. We see no reconstruction of the possible crime, only two (both convincing) versions of it presented with models and computer graphics that outline first a murder then a suicide, both plausibly explaining how a suspicious blood splatter appeared on a shed. A psychiatrist arguing passionately for Samuel’s clear-headedness and determination to live, is blamed by Sandra for getting him hooked on anti-depressants. Sandra’s novels are dragged into the trial (on the excuse that she has talked extensively about their autobiographical content) – was her use of Samuel’s idea from his abandoned novel theft or agreement? We can never be sure.

This struggle for the best story has an increasingly damaging impact on their son Daniel. Beautifully played by Milo Machado-Graner, Daniel is a quiet, sensitive, precocious young boy, whose accidental visual impairment becomes crucial. Certain at first of what he saw and heard, we see his certainty crumble during police-escorted reconstructions at the scene (the loud music making what he claimed he heard from where, impossible). On the stand he tries to reconcile his love for both his parents with knowledge of their arguments. At home with his mother, he becomes increasingly withdrawn and closer to his court-appointed guardian Marge (a superbly conflicted Jehnny Beth).

It is Marge who gives voice to, perhaps, Anatomy of a Fall’s central message. The truth is, in the end, the story we choose to believe, the one we can live with. Anatomy of a Fall presents us with multiple choices but no definitive answers. It is up to us to listen to the evidence and decide on Sandra’s guilt or innocence. Triet’s superb film throws in a final additional mystery with a late piece of evidence that is even more open to interpretation than anything else, a story that could be argued as a late realisation or an elaborate lie. We even see Samuel again, as the witness recounts words they claim he said, but this time we just see him lip synching to the audio of the witness’ testimony – are words literally being put into his mouth? The truth is what we make of it, and as subjective as any story.

Anatomy of a Fall is a brilliant courtroom drama and a scintillatingly human story with a superbly enigmatic performance from Sandra Hüller at its heart. Triet and Arthur Harari’s script is sharp and marvellously balances objective and subjective facts. Triet directs with a tight, pacey assurance, with a striking series of final images that remain open to viewer interpretation as to who is protecting whom and why. Fascinating, compelling and open to endless reconsideration and reinterpretation, Anatomy of a Fall can take its place as one of the definitive courtroom dramas on film.

Munich: The Edge of War (2021)

The backstory of history’s most famous empty promise is explored in this solid historical drama

Director: Christian Schwochow

Cast: George MacKay (Hugh Legat), Jannis Niewöhner (Paul von Hartmann), Jeremy Irons (Neville Chamberlain), August Diehl (Franz Sauer), Liv Lisa Fries (Lena), Sandra Hüller (Helen Winter), Alex Jennings (Sir Horace Wilson), Ulrich Mathes (Adolf Hitler), Anjli Mohindra (Joan), Jessica Brown Findley (Pamela Legat), Mark Lewis Jones (Sir Osmond Cleverly)

It’s 1938 and Hitler (Ulrich Matthes) wants the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Will the British and French say no? The danger is, if they do, it will lead to a war only Germany is ready for. War is feared by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Jeremy Irons), who remembers the horrors of the trenches. So, he flies to Munich to make a deal with Hitler. While there, a member of the British legation Hugh Legat (George MacKay) is contacted by an old friend, Paul von Hartmann (Jannis Niewöhner), a German diplomat now extremely disillusioned by the brutal Hitler regime.

Schwochow’s film is a handsomely mounted film version of Robert Harris’ best-selling thriller. Lots of critics called it a “What if” history film, which pretty much suggests people don’t understand what that term means. The film presents a pretty much a faithful (if compressed) version of the Munich talks, rather than some sort of alternative history. What makes it different is the revised angle it takes on Chamberlain – spiced up with a fictional plot about young diplomats trying to bring down Hitler.

Played with an avuncular, praetorian charm by a perfectly-cast Jeremy Irons, Harris book (and this film) presents Chamberlain not as a naïve idiot, duped by Hitler, but a man very much aware of the nature of his opponent, but who felt duty bound to do everything he could to safeguard peace. Chamberlain speaks with real emotion of the loss of a whole generation in the trenches and his fear that Britain is not ready for another war. Sure, Irons’ Chamberlain can also be arrogant and blinkered, convinced of his own cunning shrewdness, but he’s willing to risk his reputation for peace.

What he’s willing to sacrifice of course are the Czechs – and the film doesn’t give a lot of time (if any) to this screwed nation, that saw huge parts of its country split off and handed over to an aggressive power. The film would have been richer with more content around the debates and discussions at the conference and giving more time – as the novel does – to understanding Chamberlain’s strategic thinking. The film implies Chamberlain’s infamous bit of paper was his effort to clarify where blame for eventual war would lie – but it doesn’t allow us to understand more about what Chamberlain initially intended to gain from the conference or when he decided that he was unlikely to win any concessions from Hitler. We never see a moment of the negotiations, which seems a waste for a film that was designed to re-evaluate Chamberlain.

That’s partly because the film, like the book, gives a lot of time to its fictional plot. And like there, never seems to make this seem as vital or interesting as the historical storyline. Perhaps because, while the Munich storyline presents us with something we’ve not seen before, the fictional storyline feels familiar and derivative. George MacKay and Jannis Niewöhner do good work as slightly naïve young men who feel they can change the world, if they find a way to apply pressure at the right moment. But they feel like narrative devices to spice up the history, to throw in a bit of light espionage and peril to stop it being a film about a conference.

But everything feels familiar: clandestine meetings in crowded bars and pubs (surely anyone watching would hear everything?), meetings in parks, document handovers, pacey walks with people looking over their shoulder… It’s all handsomely done but it doesn’t feel fresh. And somehow, since we know (as this isn’t a What if… movie!) that it all end in failure (our heroes spend ages trying to get a copy of the Hossbach memorandum to Chamberlain who basically ignores it immediately) it doesn’t feel urgent enough.

And more interesting personal stories get short-changed. There is more than a hint of sexual chemistry between Hugh and Paul, that the film does more than hint at in performance, but doesn’t explore. Liv Lisa Fries as a young woman both men fall in love with, ends up shifted into a very stereotyped martyr role. There are some interesting ideas touched upon with the growth of a resistance movement to Hitler, but it never quite tells us enough to understand this. And the film shies away from being too bleak in its ending – even though the fates of both our lead characters must surely be a terminal one as they head into the war (given their chosen paths of anti-Nazi resistance cell and the RAF).

I wish the film – just as I felt when reading the book – had dropped most of its standard espionage sub-plot and instead had focused solely on Chamberlain. Especially with an actor as well-suited to the role as Irons. It would have allowed to focus exclusively on re-evaluating and exploring the motivations of those at the conference and the political and military difficulties they faced. Unfortunately, this gets diluted too much, which means we never quite get our perceptions challenged as much as they should. It’s a well-made film, but settles too often for being traditional rather than daring.