How should cinema tackle the horror of the Holocaust?
Two very different new films rise to the challenge—up to a point
A baby is crying, but whose: the one in the nursery or someone else’s child, beyond the garden wall topped with barbed wire? A dog is barking, but is it the family pet or a far more menacing animal? In “The Zone of Interest” (pictured), an ambitious new film by Jonathan Glazer, the nursery and the dog belong to Rudolf Höss (played by Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz. The wall divides his family home from the adjacent concentration camp.
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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Picturing the abyss”
Culture January 20th 2024
From the January 20th 2024 edition
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