The Zone of Interest

Well, this was a tough watch. Jonathan Glazer's fourth feature is loosely based on the Martin Amis novel of the same name and deals with the life of Rudolph Höss and his wife, Hedwig. On the surface, the story is a prosaic suburban tale of family life, scattered with the mundanity of visits from family and friends, birthday parties, gardening and troubles at work. The crucial difference is that Höss's work is as camp commandant at Auschwitz, their family home located just over the wall.

Rudolph and Hedwig are played with cold nonchalance by Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller. To all outward appearances, these two are a somewhat dull couple, with a brood of kids doing kid things, but their 'secret' isn't hidden at all. One early scene shows a bag of appropriated clothes being divvied up between the house staff. It's clear this booty had been taken from Jewish prisoners. There's a discussion between Hedwig and her friends about how one of them found a diamond in a tube of toothpaste. Hedwig lucks upon lipstick in a fur coat pocket. This is all fair game for them. 

The 'action' never strays into the actual camp, keeping the horrors at arm's length, though the smoke from the furnaces, the shouts from the guards and the gunshots are evident. When Rudolph is briefly transferred, we get to witness some high level bureaucracy in meetings about the Hungarian transportations. He also attends a swanky Nazi shindig, but as he tells Hedwig on the phone, he didn't speak to many people as he was distracted by imagining how he'd deal with exterminations in a room of that size. Very high ceilings, you see. Just one of many moments that leave mouths agape. 

The scenes of family life are reminiscent of those in Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon (Friedel also appears in this). In fact, The Zone of Interest could be seen as a logical endpoint to Ribbon - the children of that film could easily have grown into Rudolph and Hedwig. Their matter-of-fact attitude is both shocking and believable - this must have been the default position of many people for such atrocities to have been committed with this level of control and detail. 

The only sliver of humanity we get is from a local girl who, in stark thermal imaging, hides apples and pears around the prisoner work areas. And in a supremely effective thread, Hedwig's visiting mother slowly becomes aware of the enormity of their actions and unassumingly takes her leave. The scene of Hedwig finding the note from her mother, disposing of it and then icily threatening her young kitchen maid is cracking stuff. Hüller nails proud domestic beast mode. 

I can't recommend this highly enough. It's not enjoyable as such but it leaves its mark and stays with you. Quietly brilliant filmmaking.

The Zone of Interest is screening at UWA Somerville from Jan 29 - Feb 4 as part of the Perth Festival.

See also: 

As mentioned above, there are similarities to Haneke's The White Ribbon (2009), and Glazer already has another classic in his locker in Sexy Beast (2000).

The Taste of Things

This delicacy, directed by Tran Ahn Hung, is France's entry for best foreign language film for this year's Oscars. And it has a good shot at winning too. Disregard the awful English title - it's called La Passion de Dodin Bouffant in French - and prepare yourself for some of the most lovingly presented images imaginable. 

There's an amazing extended opening that captures activity in a rustic 19th century kitchen. Eugénie (the ageless Juliette Binoche) and Dodin (Benoît Magimel) are cook and gourmet of the manor. He's smitten, has been for 20 years, but it seems Eugénie wants to keep things professional. Clearly, without her skills to complement his, he wouldn't be known as 'the Napoleon of Gastronomy'.

This is only Tran's fourth film in 23 years, since he hit his peak in 2000 with The Vertical Ray of the Sun. Like that work of art, The Taste of Things is incredibly lush and evocative. Cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg's camera hovers through the kitchen and gardens, allowing the viewer a sense of movement and immersion. There's rightly been a lot of discussion about the food preparation scenes but the externals, specifically the gardens and manor grounds, are just as gorgeous to look at. And there's one particular scene with the sunlight entering a kitchen window that looks like a Caravaggio painting. 

I might be making it sound like a museum piece but there's a pretty moving story beside all the cracking visuals. Eugénie falls ill, causing Dodin to focus all his epicurean energy into a meal, with ulterior romantic motives. There's also a sidebar about potentially taking on a young apprentice, Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), as well as a blanched MacGuffin in the form of a menu for the Prince of Eurasia. 

The near two and a half hour runtime whizzes by - a neat trick for such a leisurely paced film - and the final scene is triumphantly melancholy. Lovely stuff.

The Taste of Things is screening at UWA Somerville from Jan 22 - 28 as part of the Perth Festival.

See also: 

You can't go wrong with Tran's 'Vietnam trilogy' - The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), Cyclo (1995) and The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000). I was also put in mind of Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci's similarly lip-smacking Big Night (1996).

Best of 2023 - End of Year Report

Oh, Hi Mark. And goodbye to 2023 - a good year for film, not so good in other fields of human endeavour. My film count was a bit down on last year - I saw 90 in total, including 82 new viewings and 59 trips to the cinema (just under half at the Luna in Leederville). Anyway, here are my favourite 10 films that I saw in 2023, with a podcast at the bottom of the words.

[Click on the titles for links to full reviews]

10. Cairo Conspiracy (2022)

A terrifically tense religio-political thriller about a first year university student dealing with events above his station in Cairo. Stellar performances in this rare glimpse into Egyptian culture.

9. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

James Gunn polishes off his Guardians trilogy with aplomb, centring the dramatic story on Rocket while allowing the rest of the crew to bring the chuckles and action stylings. Nobody quite hits the nails with the musical beats like Gunn.

8. Talk to Me (2022)

Best Aussie film of the year is also probably the creepiest. The Phillipou brothers, straight out of Adelaide, give us a way into the demon world via a mangy old porcelain hand. Sophie Wilde is fantastic as the focus of the story, grieving her mum and possibly finding some answers to her questions via the hand. Having the courage of its convictions adds value to the finale of the film, too.

7. Citizen Sleuth (2023)

I saw this at the 2023 Revelation Film Festival and it was my pick of the roster. It's a doco about a young woman called Emily Nestor who ran a true crime podcast that 'investigated' a road death in her area. It's part thriller, part expose on current fads, part exploration of self (that of Nestor, specifically). It really gives you something to chew over.

6. Final Cut (2022)

Great stuff, this. It started out as the worst film possible - terrible acting, poor timing, awful 'comedy', until you realise what's afoot. Romain Duris is on top form as the director of a low-budget zombie film, who runs into all manner of trouble during filming. The set-up, and eventual pay-off are cleverly worked and the climax is just reward for sitting through the brave intro section. Top farce work from actual director, Michel Hazanavicius.

5. The Old Oak (2023)

Ken Loach reckons he's done after this film and if so, he can't have served us a much better exemplar of his style. This film sees a bunch of Syrian refugees pitching up in the grim north; Durham, to be precise. Some of the locals aren't fook'n aven it man, and this attitude sets local barman, TJ, against the rest. A lovely plea for understanding and sense in a shitty world.

4. Aftersun (2022)

This is a fine two-hander about a young dad and his near-teenaged daughter trying to connect on a holiday in Turkey. Debutant director, Charlotte Wells strikes a rich vein in the relationship between Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio - they're brilliant together. An unsettling undercurrent runs through the film that keeps us guessing and wondering about what happened after(sun). Amazing filmmaking.

3. The Boy and the Heron (2023)

Not far off the very best from the guvnor of Ghibli Animation, Hayao Miyazaki. It involves a young boy who moves to the countryside during WW2 following the death of his mother. Once there, odd things start to happen, mostly stemming from the malevolent heron of the title. This fantasy-infused delight is kind of like a wrap-up of his career and it'll be a shame if he does hang up his quill (yeah, he probably doesn't use a quill).

2. Babylon (2022)

Damien Chazelle's vibrantly messed up ode to Hollywood's golden era just spanks along from the get-go. The opening party sequence is worth the ticket alone, but the filming on location stuff that follows is even better. Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie bring the wattage but the real star is Chazelle himself. He moves the pieces around the board with a confident exuberance that belies his inexperience (this is his FOURTH feature, for fuck's sake).

1. Saltburn (2023)

A late dash to the finishing line for this filthy, icky satire on privilege and desiring it. The disgustingly eccentric Catton family have, and Oliver Quick have not. But he want. Debauchery and skullduggery ensue at the Saltburn manor over a hot summer. The cast, the dialogue, the cinematography, the music - all superb. Emerald Fennel has delivered a modern classic.

Some more highlights from films I saw in 2023 are laid out below:

Best kids' films: Wonka, The Amazing Maurice, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Feelgood films: Tenor, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Wonka, The Crime is Mine.

Feelbad films (but still good): Living, Godland, Prison 77, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, The Blue Caftan.

Weirdest films: Sick of Myself, Eo, Freaks.

Best shits and giggles: Cocaine Bear, Renfield, Palm Springs.

Best scenes: The diner scene in The Innocent, the hallway brawl in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, the train sequence in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, the Battle of Austerlitz in Napoleon.

Best performances: Bill Nighy in Living; Noémi Merlant in The Innocent; Fares Fares in Cairo Conspiracy; Sophie Wilde in Talk to Me; Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt in Oppenheimer; Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike in Saltburn; Nicolas Cage in Dream Scenario; Sandra Hüller in Anatomy of a Fall; Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio in Aftersun.

Best songs: 'In the Meantime' (Spacehog) in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3; 'Syntynyt Suruun ja Puettu Pettymyksin' (Maustetytöt) in Fallen Leaves; 'Under Pressure' (Queen and David Bowie) in Aftersun; 'Destroy Everything You Touch' (Ladytron) and 'Murder on the Dancefloor' (Sophie Ellis-Bextor) in Saltburn.

[Now, I'm not going to do a 'Worst of 2023' because I really only saw one terrible film last year. The rest were just blurgh (Slumberland, Operation Fortune, etc.) or run-of-the-mill blockbusters (Black Adam, Ant-man 3, Avatar 2, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, etc.). The most egregious of the lot, though, was Ari Aster's interminable neurosis toss, Beau is Afraid. Well, Shady was almost afraid but the overriding emotion was more anger than fear. Awful fucking shite.]

Fallen Leaves

Aki Kaurismäki's latest film is an oddly affecting story of two ordinary people looking for something. I say ordinary but nothing in Kaurismäki's world is quite that, more like ordinary-adjacent, everything is a touch askew. Ansa (Alma Pöysti) lives alone and has a shite job in a supermarket. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) lives in what looks like a shipping container. He's also a secret alcoholic who works on a building site, AND he's the spitting image of Ooh-Ahh Glenn McGrath. These two lonely folk meet one night, barely, at a depressing karaoke night run by a local pub.

The rest of the film is pretty much the two of them meeting, or failing to meet one another. This sounds dull but there's something about Kaurismäki's style that allows the viewer's face to maintain a wry grin throughout. He's the deadest of pans, the straightest of bats, the most functional of directors. For example, Ansa sees an internet ad for a job at a bar. Cut to the sign of said bar to establish place. Nothing flashy, just basic film language.

The script is super dry and the performances are equally parched, especially Holappa's workmate, Huotari (Janne Hyytiäinen), he's responsible for most of the giggles. The central couple go on a date to a fantastically weird cinema - with posters for such films as Pierrot le Fou, Brief Encounter and Le Mepris on the walls outside. The film they actually see is The Dead Don't Die by Jim Jarmusch, a similarly deadpan director.

The people in the film, those in the California Bar in particular, look like extras from Kaurismäki's 80s & 90s films - still kicking along in eternal morbidity. It's a shock when we see two young singers in the regular bar. These sisters make up a Finnish band called Maustetyot, and their song (pictured below) is the one moment in the film where the tempo rises. It actually made me sit up in my seat.

Kaurismäki often plays an understated hand politically and he airs his views here by having news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the radio constantly. Compared with previous films - The Other Side of Hope, Le Havre - this seems like mere lip service but it does add to the malaise of the characters and the nihilism of their surroundings. All in all, this is a slight film that doesn't overstay its welcome but just dissolving into Aki's Finland for a while is a nice diversion.

Fallen Leaves is screening at UWA Somerville from Jan 8 - 14 as part of the Perth Festival.

See also:

A few belters from Kaurismäki: Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989), Total Balalaika Show (1994) and I Hired a Contract Killer (1990). All low-key gems.