Dramas about Nazism have always been a weakness of the Oscars . Schindler's List , Life is Beautiful , The Pianist , A Secret Passion or Inglourious Basterds are some of the many examples that have been around the Hollywood Academy Awards with important victories. This 2024, we have confirmed it again, since The Zone of Interest , a British film directed by Jonathan Glazer ( Under Your Skin ) about the horror of concentration camps, is establishing itself as one of the great contenders to highlight.
In total, it has received five nominations for Best Film, Best Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound and Best International Film. This presence in the main categories predicts a clear victory in the foreign production category, where phenomena like The Snow Society do not seem to have any chance. However, as routine as it may seem for the Academy to once again fall in love with a theme that has already won awards on many occasions, the truth is that The Zone of Interest has a very good reason for winning.
It talks about concentration camps, but in a way never seen before. At no point does it show first-hand the horror of the Holocaust, since its idea is to focus on the good life that the senior Nazi officials enjoyed in front of the fences , on how they turned a deaf ear to the horror that was in front of them while they were immersed in dream experiences due to the privileged position that Hitler's regime gave them.
The zone of interest , which adapts the novel of the same title written in 2014 by Martin Amis, places us in Auschwitz, in a house right next to the concentration camp wall. The camera insists on pointing out a family enjoying endless luxuries: exotic gardens, succulent celebrations, pool afternoons... But, at the same time, the soundtrack is responsible for clarifying the terror behind that place, which The protagonists of the film remain impassive . This is a shocking job with the off-camera, since, although we see absolutely nothing explicit, the brutal contrast between what we observe and hear leaves us with a terrible bad body.
Would have deserved more nominations
To this we must also add the very effective work with the dialogues and with the construction of characters, whose attitudes have us holding our hands to our heads throughout the entire film. Of course, we must also not forget how well its cast executes this coldness and passivity in the face of horror. Special mention to Sandra Hüller , who, although at the Oscars she is nominated for Best Actress for Anatomy of a Fall , she would have well deserved the double nomination opting for Best Supporting Actress for The Zone of Interest .
On a personal note, I have to say that, although I found his idea shocking, I think that The Zone of Interest has narrative deficiencies that do not make it as round as its success in the awards race has given us to understand. At the end of the day, it's the same concept repeated over and over again for two hours , with no plot involved. It simply presents the theme of passivity in the face of horror and exploits it in its cinematographic sections, but there is not much else to hold on to, and as the footage progresses it begins to become uphill.
Even so, its sequences stir enough for the film to shine, especially because, although we have seen the horror of the concentration camps on countless occasions, it has managed to find a novel approach with which to give us something to think about once again. topic that we believed had little to offer . In the end, it manages to put us in the first person in front of the terror without even showing it, building a very uncomfortable experience about the lack of scruples of Nazi Germany and making us live with a tremendously chilling lack of morality.
Therefore, considering the predilection that the Hollywood Academy has for these stories in the context of World War II, it is perfectly understandable that it is almost guaranteed to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film and that it has achieved so many merits in the main categories. It is still one of the proposals that have always enchanted in the mecca of cinema and, furthermore, it manages to rise to a new level that, although it may have shortcomings, it is difficult to leave anyone indifferent .
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