The Grey Zone
Nov. 25th, 2003 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynThere's nothing like a Holocaust movie to remind you that your whining about dumbass things like your job problems is stupid, stupid, stupid. In a strange bit of negative serendipity, I managed to badly time my Netflix movies so that I ended up with two harrowing Holocaust movies and a French serial killer film. I'm seriously pressed for time right now, but I really needed to get at least one of the movies back in the mail, and so I watched The Grey Zone last night. Holy crap.
I've watched a great many films centered around the Holocaust, and read an enormous number of books. I've been to the Holocaust museum in Washington twice. I've listened to my dad tell me in graphic detail what it was like coming into Dachau and other German camps in the days after liberation. I've watched all of Shoah, for crying out loud. But for some reason, this movie hit me ten times harder than any of those things, and I'm not sure why. But it sure did remind me to stop feeling sorry about work.
If you've never heard of it, The Grey Zone is about the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz, concentration camp prisoners who essentially herded others into the gas chambers and removed bodies, for the privilege of living a little longer, getting more food and better conditions, etc. I don't know why this one, out of all the information I've taken in and the creative portrayals I've seen of the horror of this time period, got to me so much, but I was more upset, sickened, and horrified by it than I have been by any other fictional depiction (and by fictional, I don't mean that the events were made up, just that obviously you have to create characters and dialog for the play/film).
The only thing I can think of is that this movie has a really disturbing casualness about it -- not that the filmmakers were casual, but that so many of the scenes that are just gut-wrenchingly horrible are portrayed with such averageness and quiet that it's almost impossible to take in. One scene just haunted me, where a group of what appear to be severely jaundiced men (their skin a vivid yellow) are marched out to kneel in front of a wall, where they're then systematically shot. The men just shuffle or walk slowly, not showing much emotion, no real fear, just a kind of resignation, that reminded me of any one of us coming in to work on an average day. I couldn't stop thinking of this scene, or the incredibly quiet (and horrifically realistic) torture scene of one woman prisoner, all night, and I never really slept.
It may also have been that this movie was somewhat different in that there weren't a bunch of actors using those fakey Euro-generic accents or faintly British accents, like that convinces us more that they're European Jews or Nazis or whatever. The cast is primarily American actors, and most of them keep their regular speech patterns, so you're reminded how truly ordinary and day to day this was -- it feels familiar in a way it shouldn't. And many of the actors are recognizable faces in unrecognizable situations -- David Arquette (yes, I know. I remember hearing how amazing he was here, but I didn't believe it until I saw it -- the former AT&T phone asshole giving an incredible performance in a powerful movie, who'd have thunk), Daniel Benzali, Steve Buscemi, Mira Sorvino, Natasha Lyonne, all have these relatively familiar faces to us, but here everything was skewed and it makes the movie feel so immediate and harrowing. One of the most familiar faces is Harvey Keitel, but he's almost unrecognizable, and he's the only one who really puts on an accent, as the German camp commander. The accent is distracting, and I wish he'd gone the route of the rest of them and spoken with his usual speech patterns, but once you get used to it, he's creepily effective. I'm a big fan of his, and I think it's one of his best performances.
The twelfth Sonderkommando were involved in an uprising at the camp, and the movie plays this just as casually as it plays everything else. Nothing ever really seems to generate Big Moments, and that may be what made the movie so painful for me. Executions are matter of fact, the horror of life is matter of fact, torture is matter of fact, and the guilt and arrogance of the Sonderkommando men is also matter of fact. The most harrowing moment of the film, when David Arquette commits a personal act of violence that comes from his consuming self-loathing for the job he does, is truly one of the most frightening things I've ever seen on film.
Forget the supernatural and vampires and demons -- I've always thought what people do to each other is the most frightening horror story of all. The Grey Zone may be one of the most terrifying represenations of that I've ever seen. It's not a movie I'd recommend to the faint of heart, but I do think it's a movie that everyone should have to see. It never got the attention of Schindler's List or any of the other bigger Holocaust films, but I think it deserves a wider audience. It's a side of the Holocaust that hasn't been shown as much, and it's one that I don't think is easily forgotten.
I've watched a great many films centered around the Holocaust, and read an enormous number of books. I've been to the Holocaust museum in Washington twice. I've listened to my dad tell me in graphic detail what it was like coming into Dachau and other German camps in the days after liberation. I've watched all of Shoah, for crying out loud. But for some reason, this movie hit me ten times harder than any of those things, and I'm not sure why. But it sure did remind me to stop feeling sorry about work.
If you've never heard of it, The Grey Zone is about the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz, concentration camp prisoners who essentially herded others into the gas chambers and removed bodies, for the privilege of living a little longer, getting more food and better conditions, etc. I don't know why this one, out of all the information I've taken in and the creative portrayals I've seen of the horror of this time period, got to me so much, but I was more upset, sickened, and horrified by it than I have been by any other fictional depiction (and by fictional, I don't mean that the events were made up, just that obviously you have to create characters and dialog for the play/film).
The only thing I can think of is that this movie has a really disturbing casualness about it -- not that the filmmakers were casual, but that so many of the scenes that are just gut-wrenchingly horrible are portrayed with such averageness and quiet that it's almost impossible to take in. One scene just haunted me, where a group of what appear to be severely jaundiced men (their skin a vivid yellow) are marched out to kneel in front of a wall, where they're then systematically shot. The men just shuffle or walk slowly, not showing much emotion, no real fear, just a kind of resignation, that reminded me of any one of us coming in to work on an average day. I couldn't stop thinking of this scene, or the incredibly quiet (and horrifically realistic) torture scene of one woman prisoner, all night, and I never really slept.
It may also have been that this movie was somewhat different in that there weren't a bunch of actors using those fakey Euro-generic accents or faintly British accents, like that convinces us more that they're European Jews or Nazis or whatever. The cast is primarily American actors, and most of them keep their regular speech patterns, so you're reminded how truly ordinary and day to day this was -- it feels familiar in a way it shouldn't. And many of the actors are recognizable faces in unrecognizable situations -- David Arquette (yes, I know. I remember hearing how amazing he was here, but I didn't believe it until I saw it -- the former AT&T phone asshole giving an incredible performance in a powerful movie, who'd have thunk), Daniel Benzali, Steve Buscemi, Mira Sorvino, Natasha Lyonne, all have these relatively familiar faces to us, but here everything was skewed and it makes the movie feel so immediate and harrowing. One of the most familiar faces is Harvey Keitel, but he's almost unrecognizable, and he's the only one who really puts on an accent, as the German camp commander. The accent is distracting, and I wish he'd gone the route of the rest of them and spoken with his usual speech patterns, but once you get used to it, he's creepily effective. I'm a big fan of his, and I think it's one of his best performances.
The twelfth Sonderkommando were involved in an uprising at the camp, and the movie plays this just as casually as it plays everything else. Nothing ever really seems to generate Big Moments, and that may be what made the movie so painful for me. Executions are matter of fact, the horror of life is matter of fact, torture is matter of fact, and the guilt and arrogance of the Sonderkommando men is also matter of fact. The most harrowing moment of the film, when David Arquette commits a personal act of violence that comes from his consuming self-loathing for the job he does, is truly one of the most frightening things I've ever seen on film.
Forget the supernatural and vampires and demons -- I've always thought what people do to each other is the most frightening horror story of all. The Grey Zone may be one of the most terrifying represenations of that I've ever seen. It's not a movie I'd recommend to the faint of heart, but I do think it's a movie that everyone should have to see. It never got the attention of Schindler's List or any of the other bigger Holocaust films, but I think it deserves a wider audience. It's a side of the Holocaust that hasn't been shown as much, and it's one that I don't think is easily forgotten.
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 10:54 am (UTC)Anyway. Thanks for this moving movie review. Haven't seen it (indeed, haven't even managed to watch Schindler's List yet), but it sounds quite powerful.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 10:57 am (UTC)That is so very true. I think sometimes that is why I do escape into the supernatural because I know it's not real. Reality can have such highs and lows. People can amaze you with their kindness and giving and people can horrify you with their cruelty and blame.
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to look for that movie. Movies about the Holocaust or other hard topics are always movies that I'm glad that I've seen because them made me think and made me remember the past and what people are capable of. There's a lesson there, but they also aren't something I often choose to see again. It's kind of painful to watch. They stay with you, you know?
no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 03:43 pm (UTC)I remember back when Tim Blake Nelson was promoting it on various talk shows, I couldn't believe the guy who played dumbass Delmar in O Brother, Where Art Thou? wrote and directed this movie. It really made me appreciate his acting a lot more.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-27 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-27 09:38 pm (UTC)