The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, 2023)

[flyonthewall2983]

Jonathan Glazer's next film will be about the Holocaust, set in Auschwitz

The director said he remembers, as a child, looking at pictures from World War II, and being horrified by specific imagery. “I remember being very taken by the faces of the bystanders, the onlookers, the complicit, you know? Ordinary Germans,” he said.

“I started wondering how it would be possible to stand by and watch that. Some of the faces actually enjoy it. The spectacle of it. The kinda circus of it,” he continued.

[Never Cursed]

Jonathan Glazer getting ready to shoot his next film, a holocaust drama loosely based on Martin Amis’s novel The Zone Of Interest, next year in Poland for, who else, A24

[beamish14]

I'm astonished that people keep trying to adapt Martin Amis' works for the screen. They have the most abysmal record of any contemporary author, just edging out Philip Roth.

[The Curious Sofa]

I'm astonished that people keep trying to adapt Martin Amis' works for the screen. They have the most abysmal record of any contemporary author, just edging out Philip Roth.

Considering it’s already been announced that this will be a loose adaptation and how Glazer approached Michel Faber’s Under the Skin, I doubt that much of Amis’ novel will end up on the screen.

[yoloswegmaster]

Filming for this started in August in Poland.

[Shanzam]

Haven't seen any of Glazer's movies yet, but I watched a lot of commercials he directed and loved them. The chicken commercial with Samuel L. Jackson is awesome.

[jazzo]

I'm very excited for you. I love them all, but Birth is very special, and probably my favourite film from the last two (Jesus - almost three) decades.

[Shanzam]

I checked the trailer for Birth, thanks, I plan to watch it. Thematically reminded me of Cahill's I origins. I like a realistic portrayal of the idea of the afterlife (or anything supernatural). Schenkman's/Bixby's Man from Earth is done in a similar way I think, the ideas being discussed rather than shown, as in a play or in literature in general. Could be due to small budget too. Still it leaves room for imagination.

[jazzo]

Just so you're aware, the film is much more ambiguous than the trailer suggests, and therein lies the film's real value. It provokes much discussion with friends!

Speaking of which, the opening shot, and one other show-stopper of a shot about a third of the way through (you'll know it when you see it), have sort-of become a litmus test for me with friends, or anyone, really, who claims to "love movies". If you aren't enraptured by those two shots, chances are you and I will have nothing in common when it comes to art and filmmaking.

[Shanzam]

I'm not in control of my taste, but I do hope I'll get enraptured by those shots.

[flyonthewall2983]

Sort of old news as it was announced two weeks ago but this will premiere at Cannes. Presumably wider release later in the year.

[dadaistnun]

Trailer

[therewillbeblus]

A series of strikingly bold formal choices, an unyielding control over tone and technique, and a clear moral framework combine to make Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest one of the more provocative and disturbing films I’ve seen in a while. If Glazer’s purposeful remove makes it more of an intellectual object than an emotional one for most of its runtime, the brazen final moments brought home the horror of its setting in genuinely stunning fashion.

Christian Friedel and particularly Sandra Hüller give precise, unsettling performances as the commandant of Auschwitz and his wife, who navigate mundane professional and familial situations literally next door to the worst ongoing crime scene in history, only tangentially affected by the unimaginable suffering just over their garden wall.

The most memorable parts of Mica Levi’s unnerving score are deployed sparingly and for maximum impact, often paired with unexpected but highly effective choices by Glazer like

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depicting certain rare moments of morally-driven action in crisp negative thermal images, or holding on black, white, or red screens for minutes at a time.

Like most of Glazer’s films, its initial impact is largely intellectual and on reflection continues to unfold and reveal itself, including in its broader allegorical implications.

This was undoubtedly a powerful experience, and even if I didn't walk away loving the project, it feels impossible not to hold respect for it. Glazer issues the most hardcore manifestations of "rated PG-13 for thematic material, some suggestive material and.. smoking" ever made. I felt like I knew, to some extent, what the movie was going to 'be like' before I saw it, so there weren’t many surprises. However, the sense of objectivity brought a refreshing stance vacuuming any blemishes of surrogate sentimentality. Glazer demonstrates the “banality of evil” -as many reviewers have already reduced its theme down to- and (while directly comparing it to our day-to-day routines), indirectly comparing it to our modern day-to-day neglect of morality was riveting, and less of a lucid, targeted, didactic communication. The film's objectivity paints a canvas where it's never coy about what it's trying to do, but doesn't need to be, and delivers explicit stimuli to provoke both discomfort and relatability simultaneously, drowned by a score of horrors out of sight, but not out of mind - at least for us. Well, not for them either, but that subtext of context as key, transmitted via hindsight bias: that our reaction to this will undoubtedly be different and more complex than theirs, as they are mildly disturbed by stimuli in the moment under an alternative context. And yet, the film's most depressively fatalistic scenes are the ones where Hüller projects her anger onto others - something most everyone can relate to, hopefully not to the degree of that context, but it still feels 'normal' in theirs as we've acclimated to it (and that's even more disturbing, that we can acclimate to this to any degree). That real-world acknowledgment of our (humanity's) compartmentalization and capacity for neglect, disengagement, moral relativism, rationalization, etc. was interesting due to removing any barrier the audience might feel if met with condescension.

Glazer's approach seems to stress more of a desperate yet passionate surrender to humanity's destiny as one of isolation, where the superfluousness of intentionality still ultimately leads to harm towards others and oneself contending with a powerless craving for security, manifested as power that secludes the individual 'safely' but promotes social segregation and destruction. If we cannot become conscious to the ramifications stemming from regression in our context, we are doomed, and how can we do so when we're so alienated from one another, so enslaved to unimpeachable systems of power producing structures for our lives, influencing our thoughts, overwhelming us so that we must stay in the present and not have the energy to plan for the future, or reflect on our actions in the present. The excess demands we perceive and are literally oppressed by obfuscate our ability to tap into a collective consciousness, or perhaps feel empathy or take moral action against the issue next door. I walk over unhoused people on the streets blindly. It's not the same thing, but there's a relationship.

A scene such as a marital conflict revolved around living arrangements and work detail could've been out of a period piece for American soldiers in WWII. It felt less specific and more of a combined indictment and frustrated compassion to our limited capacity to stop evil forces.

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The 'fantastical' animated shots of the allies planting apples for the Jews -played over the Hansel and Gretel bedtime story- are ultimately left as a gesture both meaningful and irrelevant next to the atrocities being committed. That rocked me - the notion that small acts of good will ultimately do nothing to stop historical oppression and harm. Glazer takes time to show the effort placed into the apple run, to emphasize the importance of good will, and the gratitude for their diary written, etc. But it still ends with everything as ash.

I thought the rare juxtaposition between the clinical realism with surreal intrusive score, style, and imagery at the film's midpoint was peculiar. It gave us a break while also forcing us to sit with what we've seen so far. And those bleeding shots of the organic flowers over screams of man-on-man harm left me wondering about it's intentions. I'm pretty sure the main idea is that Glazer is just placing the beautiful next to a background of terrifying score, exhibiting to us that we are unable to drown out the sound in this moment right now. Which makes us wonder why we can when we leave the theatre, and if we should. Or it validates where we are 'now' in life, as a people who can view this art, confront ourselves, and affirm our morals with consciously-motivated internal recommitment. But I'm also wondering if he sees this as a juxtaposition of organic vegetation with inorganic violence, or is he placing two organic things next to each other that provoke opposing sensations, but are still both organic and inevitable to coexist, and sitting with that.

[pistolwink]

This is not a criticism of this film as such (I haven't seem it!) nor of Glazer — but why is it that filmmakers steadfastly return to World War II and the Holocaust to make observations along these lines when the contemporary world offers plenty of examples of people going about their lives while complicit in—or indifferent to—unimaginable suffering (almost literally) next door?

[therewillbeblus]

This is using the former to remind us of the latter in a very unique and challenging way, the kind of unsettling sensation evoked that a direct movie that’s literally about the latter might not accomplish because its directness allows the viewer to escape into narrative or character instead of sitting with world and self with some distance from the text. I guess that’s less of an answer to your question than a vague defense of this movie in relation to the casual objection!

[tenia]

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And those bleeding shots of the organic flowers over screams of man-on-man harm left me wondering about it's intentions. I'm pretty sure the main idea is that Glazer is just placing the beautiful next to a background of terrifying score, exhibiting to us that we are unable to drown out the sound in this moment right now. Which makes us wonder why we can when we leave the theatre, and if we should. Or it validates where we are 'now' in life, as a people who can view this art, confront ourselves, and affirm our morals with consciously-motivated internal recommitment. But I'm also wondering if he sees this as a juxtaposition of organic vegetation with inorganic violence, or is he placing two organic things next to each other that provoke opposing sensations, but are still both organic and inevitable to coexist, and sitting with that.

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About the first bit : it reminded me of what Peter Strickland is doing, but also as a way to illustrate what is happening with the main characters : they're blocking mentally what's happening, refusing to see what is litterally next door, despite it bleeding through and into their world nevertheless. Only Hüller's mother, originally looking like she can block this too, end up being incapacited by the realities of what is happening next door and the realities of what it morally means to be able to block it. But it's also, I thought, a way to cinematographically get away with the representations of what happened there. How do you represent it visually ? Well, you don't. But sound is ok, you can toy with it in post production when you don't have the producers on your back, they saw the images and were fine with it but don't stay for sound design. And in this regard, it makes for a visually striking movie, with the movie's choices all the more careful in only letting you guess what's happening based on your personal knowledge - the train chimney smoke going over the house wall - but nothing more. And I found this cinematographic choice extremely efficient. The sound design is nightmarish, and possibly plenty enough. I read many people talking about the more visually striking choices of the movie, the lingering of monochromatic screens (black, white, red, often in stark contrast of each other), but it's the sound that drove me increasingly anxious.

As for the second bit, I was intrigued by the cutaway bit to modern day, showing employees of the museum dusting the rooms and bits and floors, and it left me thinking "while before, inmates were used to sweep the floors of a house filled with people wanting them to disappear, now people are employed to sweep the museum floors to ensure the History and memories stay... Still looks like people sweeping floors, though.

[Mr Sausage]

This is not a criticism of this film as such (I haven't seem it!) nor of Glazer — but why is it that filmmakers steadfastly return to World War II and the Holocaust to make observations along these lines when the contemporary world offers plenty of examples of people going about their lives while complicit in—or indifferent to—unimaginable suffering (almost literally) next door?

The holocaust is the ne plus ultra of genocidal indifference to human misery and degradation. Using history to comment on current events is a longstanding tradition, and the nazi horrors are the context for talking about contemporary human cruelty. It was even the origin of the concept of the banality of evil, a concept the author of the book, Martin Amis, had been obsessed with since encountering it in Arendt and Levi, even writing another novel about the holocaust in 1991, Time's Arrow (plus a non-fiction book on the soviet horrors, Koba the Dread). It's also the case that after nearly 80 years and an endless supply of documentary and secondary material, we understand this event event a lot better than any contemporary one, as in fact we're likely to understand contemporary events more easily because we know the historical pillars. etc. etc. etc.

[therewillbeblus]

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they're blocking mentally what's happening, refusing to see what is litterally next door, despite it bleeding through and into their world nevertheless. Only Hüller's mother, originally looking like she can block this too, end up being incapacited by the realities of what is happening next door and the realities of what it morally means to be able to block it.

I agree largely with everything you wrote, but this is a particularly well-observed note.

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I don't think Glazer is being subtle about it exactly, but it's kind of surreal I hadn't connected the mother's disappearance to the atrocities drowning out her vacation's 'peace of mind' next door -and the sudden shot of her binge-drinking alone in a different room- when the sensory experience was creating the same kind of anxious and unstable effect in me! Which I guess can be read as a cheeky kind of demonstration: We are primed to diagnose ourselves differently from the Germans and are far more comfortable seeing them as 'alien', and it's an uncomfortable reminder that we're all human and connected in ways we'd rather not recognize.

[tenia]

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We are primed to diagnose ourselves differently from the Germans and are far more comfortable seeing them as 'alien', and it's an uncomfortable reminder that we're all human and connected in ways we'd rather not recognize.

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It might be part of it yeah, but I think the mother seemed to be a proxy of someone having an idea - possibly through propaganda only - of what life like this might be, and the reality turned out to be too much to stomach : not just the whole atmosphere, but only realising that her daughter and her beau had completely absorbed this and made it this vague routine background noise. Just like they made their "privileges" of having this beautiful big house and big garden and him being a big shot their life, their career, something they wouldn't give away for anything. Hüller's character in particular looked to me as some completely bourgeois-ed wife, living off the whole situation and not willing to give away a single bit of any privilege she gets from it - even if it means living separately from her husband for a time. He's an extremely trustworthy petit soldat of the whole structure, devoted to being the perfect wheel within the machinery, and she shows 0 remorse saying to him "you do you, but I love this and might even prefer it over you so whatever".
In this regard, she's even worse than him, and Glazer spoke, before our showing, about how the movie isn't about those who did things, but those who let these things happen, and I thought "yeah, she's definitely even worse".

[therewillbeblus]

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We are primed to diagnose ourselves differently from the Germans and are far more comfortable seeing them as 'alien', and it's an uncomfortable reminder that we're all human and connected in ways we'd rather not recognize.

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It might be part of it yeah, but I think the mother seemed to be a proxy of someone having an idea - possibly through propaganda only - of what life like this might be, and the reality turned out to be too much to stomach : not just the whole atmosphere, but only realising that her daughter and her beau had completely absorbed this and made it this vague routine background noise.

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Yeah, I was referring to how her actions might mirror the audience's own complicated relationship with the film's strategy. I'm not sure her departure is entirely conscious - I doubt that her letter indicted her daughter or made mention of the noise or anything, she probably played up the social niceties, at least enough for Hüller to save the card rather than burn it (surely she would have reacted more anxiously if there was anything treasonous about the expressions in the note). But, clearly the experience of waking up alone on a beach chair, alone, with the wind chill, and screams, that burst the bubble of her complacency. I think that "alone" part is key - these are lonely people, protecting themselves with this notion of a collective party that is bound together tightly, but the film demonstrates how untrue that is... and moreover, and rather intrusively, how such ideological disillusionment is not unfamiliar to us...

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Just like they made their "privileges" of having this beautiful big house and big garden and him being a big shot their life, their career, something they wouldn't give away for anything. Hüller's character in particular looked to me as some completely bourgeois-ed wife, living off the whole situation and not willing to give away a single bit of any privilege she gets from it - even if it means living separately from her husband for a time. He's an extremely trustworthy petit soldat of the whole structure, devoted to being the perfect wheel within the machinery, and she shows 0 remorse saying to him "you do you, but I love this and might even prefer it over you so whatever".
In this regard, she's even worse than him, and Glazer spoke, before our showing, about how the movie isn't about those who did things, but those who let these things happen, and I thought "yeah, she's definitely even worse".

Oh man, I do not agree with that indictment at all - not only from my perspective but from Glazer's quote in your context.

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I think he's more interested in 'showing' than 'telling', and certainly doesn't implicate Hüller more than her husband who is... literally contributing to increasing the death toll with new gas machinery. Sure, she has plenty of moments where she's experiencing emotional dysregulation from a sense of abandonment, cold closed-off behavior, and overall reminder of powerlessness that reminds her of how alone she really is - and takes that out on the housekeepers. It's not good, and the threats of "my husband could spread your ashes across -" are clearly reactionary anger - just a very strong example of it, but contextually... I don't want to say "appropriate" but probably the equivalent of a much less extreme assertion of power dynamics we see all the time.

I actually took her individuality as an asset rather than defect when it came to the conversation with her husband, and I thought about how it resembled Allied nations on the homefront. In the U.S., women were working and gaining a sense of independence, utility and value divorced from the home, while also focusing harder on protecting the family during a tumultuous time without the predictable presence of the household 'head', bleeding into that role. Women had to develop and strengthen skills in self-advocacy and persistence to get their family's needs met. Hüller's speech was gentle but firm - to her, the kids and her comfort and stability are key. Yes, she was accustomed to a certain type of livelihood and probably didn't 'need' it, but I was moved by how that scene could resemble one in likely any other nation and be seen as respectable. I have no idea why one would neglect the influence of social context and come out viewing her as evil and alien, when the behavior was clearly driven by the same self-preservation to hold onto expected and familiar assets that we see all the time in our lives.

So sure, contextually she's ignoring horrific events and there's evil (or whatever you want to call it) there that's clearly recognized, but to say that her reaction within a difficult marital conversation that's pretty universal was immoral or amoral to the point of being "worse" than the Nazi commandant... I just have no idea how you could arrive there. And not because it's an 'apples and oranges' situation, but because the behavior you're signaling as evil feels contextually-appropriate and perhaps even 'normal' across nations during that time period. And if not, well it was all coming shortly, as the melodramas clearly communicated. I thought Glazer's approach to Hüller's character was by far the most ambiguous and interesting examination of anyone in the film - for her strengths and disturbing qualities are impossible to compare to create a kind of humanistic justification. Those are apples and oranges. They wouldn't be if we saw her taking action on her threats, but the reinforced passivity (that would surely result in death if altered, hence the rationalizations, delusions, etc. to keep oneself sane) juxtaposed with the active engagement with Me and Mine self-advocacy for resources was fascinating and difficult to absorb.

[tenia]

I understand the point you make, but it remains a movie shown in 2023, thus looked from a 2023 perspective, ie even if one can understand what she's trying to do, it still comes off as someone absolutely unwilling to stop taking advantage of such a horrific regime (which isn't the same than if her husband was, I don't know, a big shot in 1970s at General Motors).

Moreover, children don't have that much screen time, meaning Hüller's specific actions (such as when she's taking stuff from the Jewish coats etc) are being more in focus than what she might be doing as a mother, instead focusing more on what she does for herself, as an individual.

And yeah, I was more bothered by such an opportunistic behavior than her husband being a wheel in the machine (which he's mostly described as anyway).

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah I know we’re looking at it from a modern perspective (nothing could be more defined by the film’s formal strategy), but I guess the approach had a different effect on me -where, while I may have come to that realization about the husband, the second half really stripped back the exterior on both/all characters to reveal the vulnerabilities underneath. But again, crucially without sympathy. I think it’s deliberately restrained to provoke individualized responses, but my point was not that she’s forgivable, and more that her behavior is clearly stemming from a familiar position of a non-dominant population who’ve finally achieved some power spinning out when it’s threatened and they worry about what’s next for them..

Huller is in a great position but she’s aware that her gender disempowers her at base and that marrying a Nazi commandant was the move to achieve her ‘dreams’, under the circumstances. To look only at the surface and assume a more deranged psychology based on it is inverse to the iceberg theory of what’s underneath (fear) driving behavior, and I believe hinted at ominously throughout the film. We don’t always need to apply such energy to investigate when we see harmful behavior, because the buck can stop there. It just reads strange to afford the husband that kind of engagement but not the wife, that’s all. I think a lot of triggers are elided - Huller’s reaction feels less connected from the gifts she’s getting from Jewish prisoners (not saying she’s not benefiting.. just focusing on what’s driving the behavior) and more to the comfort of the home for her and the children, and specifically it feels like high stakes due to what accommodations or risk she knows in relation to other families about or just senses. It feels like a progressive conversation between soldier and wife rather than a problematically selfish one, in terms of what’s actually happening there driving the behavior.

If that doesn’t matter next to what she’s benefitting from, fine, but you seemed to be trying to diagnose her character - yet ignoring that base human drive the film is also clearly exhibiting and trying to challenge us, probably to have these kinds of conversations, with its inclusivity. Perhaps it’s my field, but being “opportunistic” feels like resilience rather than an indictment, and I certainly watched the husband take on waaaaay more opportunities to harm others than her, and with a more direct consciousness to his activity holding those effects - maybe with less enthusiasm? But intentionality matters… right?

Either way, it’s a worthy note that I agree with in terms of Huller demonstrating the more Nazi-ideological behavior of hanging onto the colonial/settler mentality her party is effectively influencing citizens with. Though per usual it’s not surprising to see a citizen drink kool aid that a spoke in the wheel who sees all sides may be less passionate about, and desensitized to - we see that all the time now too!

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Something else that struck me in wake of this response is a wild reach but I’ll throw it out there anyways: the Nazi husband is most likely staring to the hallway void at the end - as we the audience take a break to compare him and the modern workers cleaning the museums - and the cut back to him signals the inability to really contextualize his actions in that moment, in the way we are able to. I don’t think this is to sympathize or focus in any way on him, but on the sadness of hindsight bias and the inevitability of blind spots to true moral engagement influenced by culture and circumstance.. he just can’t see what we see, and we can’t shake him to it..

However - I began to wonder.. what if these modern shots (obviously taken from modern holocaust sites in ‘our’ world but I don’t believe ever explicitly shown as such) were actually missing those explicit signifiers to create more ambiguity - what if this is both our reality and his imagination walking down the hall. What if he’s trying to imagine a world where there are museums but the connotation is different: “This is where we did important work; the remains shown is that important work” vs framed as the tragedy that it is. I don’t think the film is necessarily doing this - but I like the idea of that ambiguity, especially as we end the experience sobered back to him (finally as.. a surrogate ?!) and none of that really matters, even if all of what’s been elided really does.

As someone who believes human behavior is morally elastic, particularly in an ‘organic’ social atmosphere populated with naturally-occurring but manufactured ideas, this film has a very effective strategy. I wish I liked it more, and didn’t feel like its strengths were also weaknesses muddling its attention, but that itself may be seen as more of a strength in time.

[tenia]

you seemed to be trying to diagnose her character - yet ignoring that base human drive the film is also clearly exhibiting and trying to challenge us, probably to have these kinds of conversations, with its inclusivity.

It might be how I come off, especially in English, but I'm not trying to "diagnose" her character so much, I was just more, how can I say it, off-put by her behavior, which felt to me as often shown as actively willing to take advantage of, well, exterminating Jews and taking everything they can from them (including not just clothes, but lipstick in the clothes' pocket), while the husband is more shown as, yeah, some good little soldier.
I'm not saying he's not harming people : he does (there's the chilling scene when he meets to get explained the crematorium for instance), but in a very corporate way (and even shown as having the deal with the corporate issues : stress, pressure, politics, etc). Her character however seems a bit more periphereal but still very happy to profit from it. That's the nuance I'd do between them : the one who does, and the one who is happy that the other does because look at what I enjoy from it.

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I also thought he's the one, in the end, having the realisation we won't remember him so much but will remember his victims instead, with the sudden cut to modern day concentration camp museum. Her character doesn't get that.

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(obviously taken from modern holocaust sites in ‘our’ world but I don’t believe ever explicitly shown as such)

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I might be misremembering but I seem to recall we're shown displays of old prisoners' clothes and stuff like this, making it very easy to guess it's a holocaust musuem. I stayed during the whole end credits to see where it was shot and my memory tells me it thanks the Auschwitz museum. IMDB states it was shot in Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, but it seems like the Hoss house was replicated only a few dozens of meters away from the real house, so it might mean this instead.

In a side note, trying to see on the Internet if that's indeed the case, I stumbled on this article, with this quote from Glazer which summarizes why I'm more off-put by her character than him : https://www.screendaily.com/features/jo ... 30.article
"In the testimony of Stanislav Dubel — a gardener who was present the day Höss told his wife, Hedwig, he was being transferred to another camp and his family would have to leave with him — Glazer learned how Hedwig “hit the roof”. She refused to leave, saying she would have to be dragged out of Auschwitz. “That felt like that was going to be the axiom of it all,” he explains. “The idea that her home life, her bliss, her garden, her house, was just too wonderful to give up. The disassociation was so extraordinary.”

I began to wonder.. what if these modern shots were actually missing those explicit signifiers to create more ambiguity - what if this is both our reality and his imagination walking down the hall. What if he’s trying to imagine a world where there are museums but the connotation is different: “This is where we did important work; the remains shown is that important work” vs framed as the tragedy that it is. I don’t think the film is necessarily doing this - but I like the idea of that ambiguity, especially as we end the experience sobered back to him (finally as.. a surrogate ?!) and none of that really matters, even if all of what’s been elided really does.[/spoiler]

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That's my take away too : it's both for us but also about him having some kind of sudden conscience input showing him an insight in the future .

[therewillbeblus]

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No you're right that it's clearly that museum in the end, I'm just spinning a yarn. And yeah, never meant to say you (or anyone) would come away from this film thinking a head Nazi was not harming people!

By diagnosing her character I meant before, when you seemed to be connecting the behavior of her character (in -as I see it- the very-familiar and relatable marital conflict when she advocates to stay) as more problematic than his, for striving more passionately to hold onto her position there, whereas he's showing less affect around the whole job. It seemed you were connecting that passionate desire and activity allowing her to stay there to a greater immorality. I was saying that I think it's driven by something different and more universal (read: not 'evil') but this may be one of those things where we'd need to take a few steps back and define our definitions of evil, and frameworks on what matters most in moving a person towards a reductive but subjectively diagnosable personality type, context-dependent or otherwise, before really moving forward on if we're talking past each other here or just disagreeing on what matters most in the conversation, without having defined that. And by that I do not mean 'am I able to give her more 'slack' than you, or vice versa, but rather what is the takeaway: Because even if Glazer is allowing us to relate here, it's not for sympathy. It's a tactic to create even greater discomfort, sprawling in more profound ways, than a reductive position connecting A to B simply might evoke.

[colinr0380]

Without having seen this film as yet, but having seen a few clips and the mention of the moment of the wife of the family fertilising her flowerbed with the ashes from the crematorium, has anybody made the connection to the firery climax of Under The Skin as yet? Where the alien, after failing in their attempts at 'assimilating' into human culture is forcefully violated and destroyed, but in that horrific 'transubstantiation' becomes an 'acceptable' part of the Earth?