The Zone of Interest
This was heavy, heavy, heavy. Director Jonathon Glazer has crafted a historical drama that right I don't think will ever be able to forget. The soundscaping here is haunting. There is little to no score at all so it makes the soundscaping of the horrors happening at Auschwitz providing the backdrop to the seemingly idyllic, picturesque family home of the camp's commandant, Rudolf Hoss.
No amount of Freddy's, Jason's or any other concoction of fictional character's combined bodycount will ever equate even a single day of the true evil and horrors that occured there under that man's direction, and yet even that is sort of secondary here in this portrait of a monsterous family man and his kin. Even within the home, the family seemingly normalizing, casualizing and indeed idolizing all of this and even more is chilling. The soundscaping is nightmare fuel and that alone is wortthy of making this film worthy of sitting through, but there is so much more.
Not quite sure it stuck the landing (ending) quite right though, but it was important to at least visually acknowledge the human cost of the terror that Hoss oversaw in a way that throughout the film is the soundscape alone, but overall It is well written and directed, but that sound... that is goign to stay with me for a long, long time.
Migration
After the heavy, heavy that was Zone of Interest, I really was just sitting through this as a palate cleanser of sorts, especially as I was scheduled to go to the celebrial 2001 after this. so was looking for something light in between. Not something needed thinking much about or needed careful attention to be paid to it, and on that basis, I guess it worked. Didn't do a great deal for me, but obviously I'm not the target audience here for a start, and secondly I probably wasn't super invested into this at the time, so perhaps not fair to fully judge this movie at this time under the circumstances.
2001: A Space Odyssey
***The cinema that I most frequently attend is doing a sci-fi month, so there will be a bunch of classics over the next few weeks that are one-off screenings, starting with this***
I'm going to preface this by saying this most recent sit through of this movie was without AD. Now, I have sat through this movie over the yeatrs, back when I could see and with the aid of AD since, but on this occasion the screening did not have AD, so with so many large sections of the film that are without dialogue and left with jus the score, soundtrack and soundscape to work from, it left me with time to ponder this question and I'm curious what others think of this also, but I found myself asking the question - is this still a good movie?
I don't mean to diminish it's importance as a landmark piece of cinematic history alongside the likes of Jazz Singer, The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane etc, and that can never be taken away. Let alone how pioneering and influential it has been to so many films that have been influenced and entire genre for that matter that have followed in it's footsteps - or indeed inspired so many film-makers of a generation, and it does something that so few movies do nowadays, in that Kubrick trusts his audience. But for all that was completely visionary and revolutionary in 1969, is it still a good movie in 2024?
I've raised this question in a more dedicated existing 2001 thread, so perhaps if you have thoughts, add them to...
https://www.movieforums.com/communit...74#post2437574