The Zone of Interest (2023)

I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy thinking how I would gas everyone in the room. Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland, 1943. Camp commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Fuller) live in an idyllic home next to the camp with their five children: Klaus (Johann Karthaus), Hans-Jurgen (Luis Noah Witte), Inge-Brigitt (Nele Ahrensmeier), Heidetraut (Lilli Falk) and Baby Annegret (played variously by Anastazja Drobniak, Cecylia Pekala and Kalman Wilson). Höss takes the children out to swim and fish while Hedwig spends her time tending the garden. He receives colleagues who explain to him how the new crematorium can be run continuously. Servants take care of the household chores and the prisoners’ belongings are given to the family: Hedwig tries a lipstick left in the pocket of a full-length fur coat. Beyond the garden wall gunshots, shouting, trains and furnaces are audible. Höss approves the design of a new crematorium, which soon becomes operational. Höss notices human remains in the river when he’s fishing and gets his children out of the water. He sends a note to camp personnel, chastising them for their carelessness. He perhaps has sexual relations with prisoners in his office. Meanwhile, a Polish servant girl at the Höss villa sneaks out every night, hiding food at the prisoners’ work sites for them to find and eat. Höss receives word that he is being promoted to deputy inspector of all concentration camps and has to relocate to Oranienburg near Berlin. His objections are futile and he withholds the news from Hedwig for several days. Hedwig, now deeply attached to their home, begs him to convince his superiors to let her and the children remain. The request is approved and Höss moves. Hedwig’s mother (Imogen Kogge) comes to stay and wonders if the Jewish woman she used to clean for is in the death camp. Eventually she is horrified by the sight and smell of the crematorium flames at night and leaves, leaving behind a note that an irate Hedwig burns after reading. Months after arriving in Berlin, in recognition of his work, Höss is charged with heading an operation named after him that will transport 700,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz to be killed, permitting him to return to Auschwitz where he will be reunited with his family … I could have my husband spread your ashes across the fields of Babice. Loosely adapted by British writer/director Jonathan Glazer from the 2014 realist novel by the late Martin Amis, it’s incumbent upon everyone reporting on this to reference Hannah Arendt’s hoary old phrase, the banality of evil, if only to restate the obvious and the accurate for the hard of listening. And the senses are pricked as much as the conscience in this film which is replete with an array of auditory assaults. The original novel didn’t use the names of the real-life people but Glazer decided to use the historical figures on which Amis based his narrative and conducted in-depth research in conjunction with the Auschwitz Museum as well as using Timothy Snyder’s 2015 book Black Earth as a source. The leads had already acted together in Amour Fou and Huller’s own dog Slava was used for filming. The family’s villa is a derelict building adjoining the camp based on the original (which has been a private home since 1945) and 10 cameras were set up so that the effect as the director says is Big Brother in the Nazi house. Only natural lighting is used, embellishing the concept of cool observation. No atrocity is seen, just heard, with an astonishingly immersive soundtrack of effects created by Johnnie Burn based on testimony and maps of the site, while Mica Levi’s score is restricted in use to further the documentary feel of a story about a German family absorbed in its own pathetic validation against the background of the mass killing and burning of Jews next door which is organised as calmly and efficiently as the preparing of meals. A devastating film that is truly better seen (and heard) than described, this is an overwhelming achievement, filled with a ghastly dread both insinuated and expressed. Immaculate if truly grim filmmaking. Sadly, Amis died on the day this UK-Poland coproduction received its world premiere at Cannes 2023. The life we enjoy is very much worth the sacrifice

Rye Lane (2023)

Of all the toilets in all of London. South East London, the present day. Aspiring costume designer Yas (Vivian Oparah) encounters accountant Dom (David Jonsson) crying in a unisex toilet at an art exhibition featuring giant closeups of mouths organised by their mutual friend Nathan (Simon Manyonda). They meet again in the exhibition and walk through the Rye Lane Market, bonding immediately over their shared messed-up connection: Dom was recently cheated on by Gia (Karene Peter) his girlfriend of six years with Eric (Benjamin Sarpong-Broni) his best friend from primary school and has moved back in with his parents. Dom meets with Gia and Eric at a restaurant for the first time since the breakup; Yas joins them, posing as Dom’s new girlfriend. They pretend to have met while singing karaoke, and leave Gia bewildered. Dom and Yas have lunch at a tortilla shop. Yas reveals she has recently broken up with her boyfriend Jules (Malcolm Atobrah) a pretentious artist with a propensity to not wave at tourists on boats being a red flag for her. Tourism funds sex trafficking. When Yas recounts that she has forgotten her vinyl copy of A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory at Jules’s flat, Dom proposes that they steal her record back. They visit Jules’s mothers’ Tanice (Llewella Gideon) and Janet (Marva Alexander) house in order to retrieve a key to his flat, but when Dom is caught going through a panty drawer by Jules’s mothers, he is kicked out. Outside, Yas admits she started hanging out with Dom at first because she felt sorry for him, but came to enjoy their time together and even turned down a job interview that afternoon. After one of Jules’s mothers lends her moped to Yas, she and Dom go to Mona’s karaoke bar for Jules’s key. In exchange for the key, they have to perform sing karaoke. They sing Shoop and Yas kisses Dom afterwards. Breaking into Jules’s flat, Yas is furious that Jules’s new girlfriend can leave her menstrual cup out when she was not allowed. Dom and Yas get caught by Jules and his girlfriend and accidentally break Jules’s art on their way out when Jules declares it was he who dumped Yas … The mouth is theStonehenge of the face! The screenplay by Nathan Byron and Tom Melia for this British romcom is set over the course of one day and features sharp commentary on the tropes of the genre as well as on millennial politicking, gender issues, the art world and the neverending battle of the sexes: that meet-cute in the gender-neutral lavs sets the irreverent tone. This pair want to get revenge and settle scores with their exes, not fall in love. I’m interested in people’s messes. Flavourful, funny and fresh, it benefits hugely from the charismatic performances of the leads (Oparah has a double whammy this year with her role as Stink in Sky’s brilliant series Then You Run) and the overall attitude of the material which mixes street smarts with relationship woes. I believe in your ability to completely destroy someone’s life one day. A colourful showcase for London, this was shot by Olan Collardy at the Coal Rooms restaurant, Rye Lane Market, the grocery store Nour Cash & Carry in Brixton Village, the Ritzy, Peckham Soul record shop, Morley’s chicken shop, the Italian restaurant Il Giardino, Brockwell Park and the Peckhamplex. This is literally my dream date. There’s a funny cameo by Colin Firth that neatly references London’s 21st century romcom history. Now everyone’s only as good as their profile photo. With the soundtrack by Kwes threatening to turn this bright vibey comedy walkabout into a musical at any moment, this is confidently and stylishly directed by debutante director Raine Allen-Miller. Like a ‘Sunday morning in Kingston’ type vibe. Jamaica, not … Upon Thames