'The Zone of Interest' Won Best International Film at the Oscars
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Oscar-nominated film The Zone of Interest is one of ten Best Picture nominees at tonight's Academy Awards, and it already won Best International Film.
The movie, directed by Jonathan Glazer and based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis, follows Rudolph H?ss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp. H?ss lives with his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), and their five children in a home next to the camp, maintaining an idyllic life while horrors take place just beyond their garden wall.
"The H?ss house is still there, and the proximity to the camp is striking," Glazer said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. (In real life, the home is still standing next to Auschwitz.) "I imagined myself at one point as a prisoner, imagining hearing the sounds of the H?ss children splashing and laughing in their swimming pool on the other side of the wall. The idea of the film became about that wall, about how that wall is a direct manifestation of how we ourselves as human beings compartmentalize the things we were happy to indulge in and surround ourselves with and the things — sometimes horrible things — we want to disassociate ourselves from. That became the axiom of the whole endeavor."
Producer James Wilson said, "Many say the film shows the banality of evil, and it does, perhaps more than other films have done, but I hope it goes beyond that. One of the people who worked on the movie, a German script consultant, said: 'Rather than just ask the question how could ordinary people do such terrible things, it asks: How like them are we?' That’s a different, maybe more interesting and definitely more disturbing question."
How to watch The Zone of Interest:
As of February 21, 2024, the film is available to purchase from the comfort of your own home, including on AppleTV, Prime Video, YouTube Movies, and more.
Where to stream The Zone of Interest:
The movie is distributed by A24, and is expected to be available to stream on Max, but no date has been announced yet. We'll update this as soon as we learn more.
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