The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Huller) strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp. It is difficult for them considering that, throughout any given day, there is consistent yelling, screaming and gunshots occurring at the camp that they are earshot of. What is a nice WWII German family to do? So, the comparison becomes unnerving.
Others to round out the cast are Medusa Knoff as Elfryda, Daniel Hotzberg as Gerhard Maurer, Sascha Maaz as Arthur Liebehenschel, Max Beck as Schwarzer, Wolfgang Lampl as Hans Burger, Ralph Herforth as Oswald Pohl and Freya Kreutzkam as Eleanor Pohl.
This was directed with such subtlety and grit by Jonathan Glazer ("Sexy Beast" 2000, "Birth" '04, "Under the Skin" '13) plus TV, shorts, music videos and videos. While people in the concentration camp were being tortured, the German family, the head of the household as the commandant, were more concerned about their everyday life and how those issues can be resolved--the difference is stunning. The lives of this family were portrayed in such a nonchalant way like this lifestyle happens all the time. His work was stunning! It is also written by Jonathan Glazer ("Commission" '97, "Birth" '04, "Under the Skin" '13) plus shorts, based on a novel by Martin Amis. All in all, this script was effective--the premise is certainly original considering it's a war film, however, the story was a bit disjointed, especially during the first 45 minutes. And, even though this was a direct contrast of this German family living a normal life while prisoners at Auschwitz were going through their own hell, I felt that the contrast wasn't as obvious as it should have been. One could hear the prisoners at the camp, but it wasn't as clear as it could've been. I'm not saying that the difference needed to be gratuitous, but the difference could've been more delineated. This portrayed as a dry comedy would've been tantalizing, but with all that's been in the news of late, it probably would have been in poor taste. The direction, acting, especially by Friedel and Huller was stunning, as was the cinematography. One could write a societal thesis on this of how people can become used to their surroundings, no matter how horrific. Today, people have become so out of touch with others that we simply can ignore someone who's in peril just because they don't want to be involved. There certainly isn't much difference between the two scenarios.
It is surprising that this film has been nominated for Oscars--best picture, director and adapted screenplay. Direction, most assuredly, but for picture and screenplay? There were so many other films out there that were not nominated that, in my opinion, were more worthy, It's an interesting film--the best aspect of it being the premise, however the script simply needed a bit more polish,
Out of 4 Stars: 2.5 Rated: PG-13 104mins.
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