I so agree on _Zone of Interest_--except that the music and the stills were amazing and brilliantly done. One of my thoughts after seeing the film was that it was, at this point in time, incredibly unfair to the German population that has so redeemed itself.
But I totally disagree on _Anatomy of a Fall_. One of the best screenplays ever and Sandra Hüller was brilliant in this film--as was the child and the now-famous dog. I love that film. The French legal system is another story.
Haha. I might have been too dyspeptic on Anatomy of a Fall. I did like it! Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I thought it was smart, deep, morally ambiguous. Yes, Hüller is brilliant (as she also is in Zone of Interest) and Snoop is well-deserving of the Palm Dog Award (although, to be fair, I didn’t see the competition). My critiques are more in the vein of nitpicking - a couple of places where I thought the execution didn’t entirely come through on a very strong film.
My wife and I just saw Anatomy of a Fall. It was a superb film; your analysis is quite good as well. Oh... and best of all the second shoe is simply never there to drop. I so feared it would right up until the very end. O. Henry be damned.
The points you make about films on the Holocaust are really interesting. I read recently that world war two fiction is still going strong because WW2 provides a backdrop of absolute morality (Hitler and Nazis: evil; everyone else: good) so I welcome grey areas. From what you say, though, Zone of Interest is bland rather than morally ambiguous. I've yet to see this film so I can't comment any further on that. I do sometimes feel that the constant recycling of WW2 (even though I'm guilty of it to some degree in my own forthcoming novel) is a lazy distraction from historical and ongoing conflicts that have greater relevance to us now.
I so agree on _Zone of Interest_--except that the music and the stills were amazing and brilliantly done. One of my thoughts after seeing the film was that it was, at this point in time, incredibly unfair to the German population that has so redeemed itself.
But I totally disagree on _Anatomy of a Fall_. One of the best screenplays ever and Sandra Hüller was brilliant in this film--as was the child and the now-famous dog. I love that film. The French legal system is another story.
Haha. I might have been too dyspeptic on Anatomy of a Fall. I did like it! Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I thought it was smart, deep, morally ambiguous. Yes, Hüller is brilliant (as she also is in Zone of Interest) and Snoop is well-deserving of the Palm Dog Award (although, to be fair, I didn’t see the competition). My critiques are more in the vein of nitpicking - a couple of places where I thought the execution didn’t entirely come through on a very strong film.
My wife and I just saw Anatomy of a Fall. It was a superb film; your analysis is quite good as well. Oh... and best of all the second shoe is simply never there to drop. I so feared it would right up until the very end. O. Henry be damned.
The points you make about films on the Holocaust are really interesting. I read recently that world war two fiction is still going strong because WW2 provides a backdrop of absolute morality (Hitler and Nazis: evil; everyone else: good) so I welcome grey areas. From what you say, though, Zone of Interest is bland rather than morally ambiguous. I've yet to see this film so I can't comment any further on that. I do sometimes feel that the constant recycling of WW2 (even though I'm guilty of it to some degree in my own forthcoming novel) is a lazy distraction from historical and ongoing conflicts that have greater relevance to us now.