Pasquale
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Post by Pasquale on Dec 24, 2023 20:33:40 GMT
This may be the ballsiest movie, I have ever seen!
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Post by Martin Stett on Dec 24, 2023 21:49:28 GMT
You were saying?
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Post by mhynson27 on Dec 24, 2023 23:07:44 GMT
It's aight
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Post by countjohn on Jan 11, 2024 3:11:36 GMT
One of those movies where it just feels like I'm watching the same scene over and over after a certain point. German people doing mundane things like listen to soccer on the radio, reading their kids stories, exc while you hear the generators fire up or see smoke in the background.
The point was made after the first couple scenes of the movie and I don't even think it was a particularly interesting point. The Holocaust would have been just as bad if it happened in a country where everyone was poor and miserable, that has no impact on the value of the lives that were lost. The only point something like this has is to guilt trip the Germans who stood by but they're all dead by now so there's not much reason for this.
Glazer's usual cinematography and the sound design are good though. The scenes where it sort of worked were where it got a little more absurdist, the guy complaining because the SS keep messing up his flower beds and a big discussion of whether or not they should patent the gas chambers. Doing this premise as a dark tragicomedy would have been more dynamic and interesting, as it was it was just an exercise in dead people's guilt.
If Glazer is only going to do one film a decade in between all the commercials and music videos wish he'd do better than this.
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Post by stabcaesar on Jan 11, 2024 3:13:33 GMT
Did you guys see this in the cinema?
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Post by countjohn on Jan 11, 2024 4:45:09 GMT
Did you guys see this in the cinema? I did tonight. I'm in NYC. Looked on box office mojo and it's apparently only in six theaters in the US.
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Post by futuretrunks on Jan 11, 2024 5:53:41 GMT
One of those movies where it just feels like I'm watching the same scene over and over after a certain point. German people doing mundane things like listen to soccer on the radio, reading their kids stories, exc while you hear the generators fire up or see smoke in the background. The point was made after the first couple scenes of the movie and I don't even think it was a particularly interesting point. The Holocaust would have been just as bad if it happened in a country where everyone was poor and miserable, that has no impact on the value of the lives that were lost. The only point something like this has is to guilt trip the Germans who stood by but they're all dead by now so there's not much reason for this. Glazer's usual cinematography and the sound design are good though. The scenes where it sort of worked were where it got a little more absurdist, the guy complaining because the SS keep messing up his flower beds and a big discussion of whether or not they should patent the gas chambers. Doing this premise as a dark tragicomedy would have been more dynamic and interesting, as it was it was just an exercise in dead people's guilt. If Glazer is only going to do one film a decade in between all the commercials and music videos wish he'd do better than this. So it's a Glazer movie. He always does this shit. He has to be the most arrogant filmmaker in the world. I swear to god Under the Skin was a personal affront to me. It was not even trying to do anything. I will watch 300 seasons of crap like NCIS before I give a pretentious douche like Glazer an inch of respect.
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Post by countjohn on Jan 11, 2024 19:11:03 GMT
One of those movies where it just feels like I'm watching the same scene over and over after a certain point. German people doing mundane things like listen to soccer on the radio, reading their kids stories, exc while you hear the generators fire up or see smoke in the background. The point was made after the first couple scenes of the movie and I don't even think it was a particularly interesting point. The Holocaust would have been just as bad if it happened in a country where everyone was poor and miserable, that has no impact on the value of the lives that were lost. The only point something like this has is to guilt trip the Germans who stood by but they're all dead by now so there's not much reason for this. Glazer's usual cinematography and the sound design are good though. The scenes where it sort of worked were where it got a little more absurdist, the guy complaining because the SS keep messing up his flower beds and a big discussion of whether or not they should patent the gas chambers. Doing this premise as a dark tragicomedy would have been more dynamic and interesting, as it was it was just an exercise in dead people's guilt. If Glazer is only going to do one film a decade in between all the commercials and music videos wish he'd do better than this. So it's a Glazer movie. He always does this shit. He has to be the most arrogant filmmaker in the world. I swear to god Under the Skin was a personal affront to me. It was not even trying to do anything. I will watch 300 seasons of crap like NCIS before I give a pretentious douche like Glazer an inch of respect. Well if you didn't like Under the Skin you're not going to like this. Under the Skin had a lot more variety in what happened and had a lot going on thematically. This is way more repetitive both in terms of the action and hitting the same theme home over and over.
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Pasquale
Full Member
Posts: 542
Likes: 228
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Post by Pasquale on Jan 12, 2024 15:30:49 GMT
countjohn I had the same reaction, in terms of learning nothing, that I didn't already know by reading the brief synopsis of the movie. The gravitas of the film, hit me, though, as I was waking up, the next day. DON'T BE ALONE!
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Post by ingmarhepburn on Jan 19, 2024 2:25:55 GMT
Just came back from seeing this, and... Yeah, I have to agree with what's been said here. I get what the director was going for with the "banality of evil", but it works better in the trailer than in a full-length, 90-minute picture. In the end, what you see is what you get: a boring, mundane, alienating movie, lacking depht and likable characters (or any significant character development). No idea why this is getting such good reviews.
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Post by stephen on Jan 27, 2024 1:24:33 GMT
Jeanne Dielman but with slightly more swastikas.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Jan 27, 2024 5:45:30 GMT
The mundane nature, juxtaposed by the unseen horrors, is an interesting approach….
But that approach is also incredibly repetitive, riding on that idea for almost the entirety of its running time.
Credit to the gutsy ending, though.
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Post by mhynson27 on Jan 27, 2024 13:17:44 GMT
The ending is definitely my favourite part of it.
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Post by finniussnrub on Jan 30, 2024 2:10:01 GMT
I liked this more than many of you seem to but can someone explain the adapted screenplay nomination???
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Post by TylerDeneuve on Jan 31, 2024 18:52:46 GMT
Archie - I promised I would share my thoughts. This film was completely hypnotic to me - I genuinely could not take my eyes off the screen. Glazer's auteur vision is so compelling in its assuredness, so powerful in its bold simplicity - he dares you to look away. The horrors of the Holocaust are rarely (if ever) shown from the Nazi point of view, and I can't imagine it ever being done better than it has been here. But I have to say - I think equal credit has to be given to the legend Mica Levi's bold, brilliant sound design. Their work perfectly underscores his vision - the film simply wouldn't be as absorbing as it is without it, for all of its lithe strength. I've said this elsewhere on the forum, but I think it bears repeating: The acting is all good, but the actors are little more than pieces in Glazer's game of visual chess. I don't think anyone in the cast (including Hüller) was close to an Oscar nomination; I just can't imagine actors having any question about to whom the film belongs. Edit: I also wanted to add that though I currently have The Holdovers and Past Lives ranked above it in terms of the Best Picture nominees... this is the one I'm most anxious to see again.
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Archie
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Eraserhead son or Inland Empire daughter?
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Post by Archie on Jan 31, 2024 18:58:13 GMT
Archie - I promised I would share my thoughts. This film was completely hypnotic to me - I genuinely could not take my eyes off the screen. Glazer's auteur vision is so compelling in its assuredness, so powerful in its bold simplicity - he dares you to look away. The horrors of the Holocaust are rarely (if ever) shown from the Nazi point of view, and I can't imagine it ever being done better than it has been here. But I have to say - I think equal credit has to be given to the legend Mica Levi's bold, brilliant sound design. Their work perfectly underscores his vision - the film simply wouldn't be as absorbing as it is without it, for all of its lithe strength. I've said this elsewhere on the forum, but I think it bears repeating: The acting is all good, but the actors are little more than pieces in Glazer's game of visual chess. I don't think anyone in the cast (including Hüller) was close to an Oscar nomination; I just can't imagine actors having any question about to whom the film belongs. I'm completely dying to watch this. My most anticipated film in quite some time. I just know that Glazer is going to mess me up here.
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Post by TylerDeneuve on Jan 31, 2024 19:06:08 GMT
Archie - Definitely see it at the cinema. I think the visual and aural qualities simply demand this format - I'm just not sure it would have the same impact on a laptop.
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Post by TylerDeneuve on Feb 4, 2024 1:55:01 GMT
Have you guys had the chance to see it? It's playing nationwide now, right?
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Post by Viced on Feb 4, 2024 6:22:53 GMT
Truly torturous. A film with only one idea... explored in the most banal way possible. And anyone that would respond "that was the point" to that statement... please get a grip. I am genuinely stupefied how anyone could get anything out of this outside of a bored brain and sore ass. I literally laughed out loud at the pretension on display a solid 3 times. EXTENDED RED SCREEN AND LOUD VIBRATING SCOREI had an old guy a few seats away from me shoveling popcorn down his throat and hocking up phlegm every 5 minutes... could not have asked for a better neighbor to fit the overall vibe of the experience more perfectly. Jonathan Glazer............ retire bitch. Looking very likely that Birth will be the last good film he ever makes.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Feb 6, 2024 9:28:55 GMT
Mostly great, easily Glazer’s best - an absolute masterclass in suggestion, and creating unease through what is unseen or unsaid. I think it’s a film where you either respond to what it’s going for or you simply don’t... though I also think how much you do respond to it partly depends on how well you pick up on certain details that the film includes, but doesn’t really dwell on. A lot of the most impactful moments are small and happen pretty quickly, and are presented very matter-of-factly or from a distance rather than overtly emphasized, so they can be easy to miss, but they’re integral to the film’s overall power imo. I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie where its visual design was so crucial to its thematic and affective goals – the clinical, “objective,” almost documentary-like approach devoid of any sensationalism or emotionalism eerily making what we’re watching more chilling in its mundanity. Even with minimal music though, I actually wish the film were entirely scoreless and think the moments that featured music would have been more effective without it – it’s one of those cases where I don’t need the music to tell me that what I’m watching is unsettling... the masterful sound design is quite enough on its own. It might be a film with only one idea... but I don’t think that’s inherently a bad thing. Its goal isn’t narrative or character-driven, but rather affect-driven – generating and sustaining a feeling of sickness and dread as we continue to witness not just the banality of evil but also the horrifying blindness to evil’s normalization, and the indifference to it. A lot of scenes appear to show us variations of the same thing, but for me it achieved a sort of layered effect where each scene hit slightly differently either because we’re shown a new disturbing detail, or we learn something new about the family, or certain symbolic elements stand out more, etc. My one other issue aside from the score is that I think the ending is slightly mishandled. I would have preferred it if the flashforward to the present day were either saved for the very last scene or left out entirely. Its insertion in the middle of the scene with Rudolf on the staircase is both jarring and heavyhanded to me... but I think the flashforward could have worked as a bookend to the film after the 1943 portion concluded. Slightly under 9/10
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Feb 6, 2024 21:35:57 GMT
The scenes where it sort of worked were where it got a little more absurdist, the guy complaining because the SS keep messing up his flower beds and a big discussion of whether or not they should patent the gas chambers. I didn’t catch this while watching it, but someone on reddit pointed out that he’s not really talking about flowers in that scene. The lilacs he’s referring to is actually code for the female prisoners – he says something to the effect of “don’t rip the flower off so roughly that it draws blood” which I initially took to mean a translation of sap or something... but the reference to blood and the line about making sure that “everyone else can enjoy the flowers too” gives a whole new disturbing meaning to the scene.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Feb 6, 2024 21:40:27 GMT
The scenes where it sort of worked were where it got a little more absurdist, the guy complaining because the SS keep messing up his flower beds and a big discussion of whether or not they should patent the gas chambers. I didn’t catch this while watching it, but someone on reddit pointed out that he’s not really talking about flowers in that scene. The lilacs he’s referring to is actually code for the female prisoners – he says something to the effect of “don’t rip the flower off so roughly that it draws blood” which I initially took to mean a translation of sap or something... but the reference to blood and the line about making sure that “everyone else can enjoy the flowers too” gives a whole new disturbing meaning to the scene. I didn’t catch that either but it makes a lot of sense in hindsight. Disturbing stuff indeed.
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Post by JangoB on Feb 21, 2024 1:16:30 GMT
Jonathan Glazer has said that one of his goals with this movie was "to remove the artifice of filmmaking," and yet I can't help but feel that his method does precisely the opposite. All the carefully composed shots and strategically placed (to the point of evoking Wes Anderson, of all people, which is probably not something you'd want in a movie like this) reminders of Nazi atrocities just seem to accentuate the calculated nature of the project, and the decision to completely avoid showing the horrors of the Holocaust comes off as somewhat gimmicky. As he's done in the past, Glazer takes one concept - which in this case is "Depicting the everyday activities of an SS family with their victims remaining unseen" - and leans into it without exploring anything on its periphery. The resulting experience is decidedly unemotional, save for a few moments of more pronounced shock, and not especially stimulating from an intellectual standpoint since its intentions become clear within no more than 15 minutes, and the obvious means of their execution are essentially rehashed over and over again without much change.
But even if The Zone of Interest is mostly a formalist exercise, it certainly does its thing quite effectively. The above paragraph may sound harsh but it's basically my way of explaining how the discrepancy between Glazer's aim and technique prevented the film from becoming properly great for me. Good, though? Sure. It may be a one-idea piece but its one idea is solid and peculiar enough to sustain a 100-minute feature. Just not enough to elevate it to the realm of brilliance.
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Post by finniussnrub on Feb 21, 2024 1:22:15 GMT
Jonathan Glazer has said that one of his goals with this movie was "to remove the artifice of filmmaking," and yet I can't help but feel that his method does precisely the opposite. All the carefully composed shots and strategically placed (to the point of evoking Wes Anderson, of all people, which is probably not something you'd want in a movie like this) reminders of Nazi atrocities just seem to accentuate the calculated nature of the project, and the decision to completely avoid showing the horrors of the Holocaust comes off as somewhat gimmicky. As he's done in the past, Glazer takes one concept - which in this case is "Depicting the everyday activities of an SS family with their victims remaining unseen" - and leans into it without exploring anything on its periphery. The resulting experience is decidedly unemotional, save for a few moments of more pronounced shock, and not especially stimulating from an intellectual standpoint since its intentions become clear within no more than 15 minutes, and the obvious means of their execution are essentially rehashed over and over again without much change. But even if The Zone of Interest is mostly a formalist exercise, it certainly does its thing quite effectively. The above paragraph may sound harsh but it's basically my way of explaining how the discrepancy between Glazer's aim and technique prevented the film from becoming properly great for me. Good, though? Sure. It may be a one-idea piece but its one idea is solid and peculiar enough to sustain a 100-minute feature. Just not enough to elevate it to the realm of brilliance. Yeah the notions of "removing the artifice" are utterly ridiculous as the whole thing is crafted like a "Where's Waldo" drawing just done as "Where's the atrocity?" instead. I guess if Glazer really wanted to make it with this idea in mind, it should've been all shot in dirty black and white that resembled real documentary footage Nazis shot or something of that ilk, without any sense of proper cinematography (certainly don't get Żal if you are trying to avoid emphasis on the overt filmmaking), therefore make it seem like real home movies.
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Post by JangoB on Feb 21, 2024 1:43:48 GMT
Jonathan Glazer has said that one of his goals with this movie was "to remove the artifice of filmmaking," and yet I can't help but feel that his method does precisely the opposite. All the carefully composed shots and strategically placed (to the point of evoking Wes Anderson, of all people, which is probably not something you'd want in a movie like this) reminders of Nazi atrocities just seem to accentuate the calculated nature of the project, and the decision to completely avoid showing the horrors of the Holocaust comes off as somewhat gimmicky. As he's done in the past, Glazer takes one concept - which in this case is "Depicting the everyday activities of an SS family with their victims remaining unseen" - and leans into it without exploring anything on its periphery. The resulting experience is decidedly unemotional, save for a few moments of more pronounced shock, and not especially stimulating from an intellectual standpoint since its intentions become clear within no more than 15 minutes, and the obvious means of their execution are essentially rehashed over and over again without much change. But even if The Zone of Interest is mostly a formalist exercise, it certainly does its thing quite effectively. The above paragraph may sound harsh but it's basically my way of explaining how the discrepancy between Glazer's aim and technique prevented the film from becoming properly great for me. Good, though? Sure. It may be a one-idea piece but its one idea is solid and peculiar enough to sustain a 100-minute feature. Just not enough to elevate it to the realm of brilliance. Yeah the notions of "removing the artifice" are utterly ridiculous as the whole thing is crafted like a "Where's Waldo" drawing just done as "Where's the atrocity?" instead. I guess if Glazer really wanted to make it with this idea in mind, it should've been all shot in dirty black and white that resembled real documentary footage Nazis shot or something of that ilk, without any sense of proper cinematography (certainly don't Żal if you are trying to avoid emphasis on the overt filmmaking), and make seem like real home movies. lol, "Where's Waldo" Yeah, besides the shot construction, Glazer's another idea of artifice removal seems to have been instructing his actors/crew what to do, running to a nearby house to observe all of it from a distance (see, so that he wouldn't "participate" in the artificial filmmaking process!), then run back and do the same thing again. I mean... I don't mind the method itself per se, but I just wish Glazer wouldn't then present it as a crusade against artifice in cinema when the whole thing is just one big gimmick. Own that shit! But yeah, owning that shit would probably mean a bit fewer awards nominations. Ugh, I hate to sound so cynical!
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