The holocaust is a challenging subject matter. The main focus point is one of the most evil events in human history. Stories about the holocaust are not easy to digest or watch. A good movie about this event can reframe your mind and priorities to a great extent. We all have a form of collective understanding of the Holocaust. This means when we see films about it, we can infer a lot from the context regarding the history. And in turn, fill the gaps of the horrors.
As properly the most famous event in history. It’s not surprising so many movies are about this time and subject. Without being too cynical I would say it is “easier” to make an emotionally heavy film on such an event. since we again have this collective understanding of it. In fact, we don’t even have to see the event for it to work. This post is going to be about the 2 best holocaust films and what they both have in common. I will highlight this element as the “key” to a good holocaust film.
Son of Saul
Son of Saul is a Hungarian film from 2015. It follows a man named Saul in a Nazi camp. Saul has the job of leading other Jews into the gas chambers. At one point he sees a dead body and is immediately convinced it’s his son.
At first glance the idea of following a man inside a Nazi camp is horrifying. Imagine all the death and agony everywhere, imagine all the dead people. This is exactly the point “imagen” for what the film does is it centers very closely on Saul. The camera is always right on this body or face leaving no room for anything else. This means you can only see things in the peripheral view. Everything else is pure sound. We get to hear every little sound of suffering and cries for help. By having the camera so close to Saul we get to see his reaction in combination with all the horrors around him.
This is what makes the film so powerful. When walking around with Saul in camp we see little of the actual horror. Instead, the focus is on what we hear, which is infinitely more disturbing. Every little scream or cry for help gets drowned out by the perpetual wave of suffering. When we can’t see what’s going on we fill in the gaps with our imagination. This is where the truly heavy aspects lie and why the film works so well.
The Zone of interest
The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer is about Rudolf Höss. He was commander of the most infamous concentration camp of them all, Auschwitz. The film is about Rudolf and his family as they live in their dream house right next to the camp. The movie is tranquil with scenes taking place in their beautiful garden and nature grounds around the property. Not an awful lot is happening from scene to scene, it’s more about the daily lives of this Nazi family. At times they might be fishing, at other times they might be preparing for a nice dinner. The film is a slice of life, at least in the beginning.
The camera doesn’t ever move. It’s fixed in place and Glazer cuts from one still picture to the next, evoking a picture book-esque feel. At no point in the film do we see into the camp. It’s only ever in the background. We see some black smoke from the distance. We know due to the cultural understanding of the Holocaust what is going on. We hear screams sometimes, it’s ever so faint, but it’s there. None of the characters ever point out anything.
Having this small ambient sound of suffering with no acknowledgment from the characters makes for a particularly brutal watching experience. A lot of Nazis in movies appear evil from the get-go, again relying on the cultural understanding. The Höss family is totally indifferent to the suffering. Which is way worse than if they were cartoonishly evil like other movie Nazis.
The key to making a good holocaust film is ironically not to showcase how bad it was. In fact, by limiting what we see, we imagine things much worse than could ever be on screen. The thing is, what we imagine is far from how bad it was in real life.
The importance of sound design is closely linked with horror films. If you want a horror movie to be less scary you should cover your ears now your eyes. Horror films are dependent on a strong sound. Whenever you see the monster or the threat it becomes slightly less scary. I suppose it’s only fitting for these two films to have something in common with horror films. After all, they both tackle the biggest horror of them all.