Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Huller) was living in a beautiful home in the German countryside. It had a spacious garden and a river nearby where they can swim with their children. However, outside the tall walls of their idyllic property, they can see columns of smoke and hear shouting, crying, screams and gunshots. Rudolf Hoss was the commandant of the facility next door -- the concentration camp of Auschwitz.
The anticipation to watch this film was very high, mostly due to the nominations and awards it had been picking up since it won the Grand Prix and three other prizes at the Cannes Film Festival where it premiered. It won three awards at the BAFTA, and is now nominated for five awards in the coming Oscars, including Best Picture, International Film (where it is favored to win), as well as Director and Adapted Screenplay for Jonathan Glazer.
This film was not an easy watch. Contrary to what you may think, it was not because it was about the Holocaust at Auschwitz. There was no scenes from inside the concentration camps at all. However, we do FEEL the horror going on behind those imposing walls, despite the clean and bright house and people we see on screen. Jonathan Glazer made sure of that mainly by the stunning sound design by Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn.
Christian Friedel's Rudolf Hoss had an odd-looking white side wall haircut and an obsession for wearing all white and cleaning up. Even if he never had a moment of obvious anger or cruelty, we all felt the evil of what he was doing. German actress Sandra Huller had a good year last year, with a role in two Best Picture nominees (this and "Anatomy of a Fall"). Her Hedwig was just as innately chilling, even if she was just being a housewife and mother.
This film had practically no plot. All we saw were mundane scenes of daily family life, all going on unmindful of the atrocities outside. Glazer only wanted us to see and feel the life of a Nazi officer and butcher at home. He was just like any other father who ate dinner with his family and told his kids bedtime stories. But then we knew this was not a normal family. We knew where that mink coat and those gold teeth came from. The irony was not lost on us. 8/10
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