glazer’s big budget mainstream breakthrough was not accessible enough to hold the interest of the fat fuck sitting next to me, chomping and rustling his way through an entire bag of potato chips. at the end of the film i heard him say to his friend, “WTF was that even about?!” oscar season is so funny, LOL!!
my expectations were probably impossibly high for this. i saw Sexy Beast on a DVD my brother rented from blockbuster way, way back, probably around the time it was released in canada. haven’t seen it since. Under the Skin i also have not seen lately. my recollection is that it was highly abstract—i remember having a hard time following the narrative. The Zone of Interest is fairly spare in terms of the abstraction; it’s narrative-forward, but tbh i wish that it was just a little bit MORE abstract.
the opening (ambient music and a black screen for an unprecedented length) was quite astonishing. when we first switch to negative-land and watch the girl planting apples in the side of a trench, wow, it fucking hit…but by the time everything dissolves into red and we get the demon burp score, i’m like, okay, this is pretty on the nose, mr. glazer. you’re kind of holding our hands. it’s a bit obvious. but maybe not obvious enough for the shit-muncher next to me. maybe it’s as obvious as it needs to be.
i just feel like…maybe he actually waited too long to make this? especially with the score, it really felt like a lot of the abstract touches that really make this film something original have already passed into the mainstream cinematic lexicon. they’re not avant-garde anymore, they’re not cutting edge…the score especially, with the aforementioned demon burps, although chilling, feels so familiar to me.
but then—at the end, when “things change,” as soon as i saw their badges i knew what was up and i have to say—immediate tears (i am a sap). it was a very powerful ending, and probably the most clever and innovative and forward-thinking and avant-garde and groundbreaking aspect of the film for me. people talk about glazer like he’s godard-tier or something…based mostly on this film, i would not go so far as to say that he is the most important filmmaker working today…but the ending of this film is undeniably a highly “artistic” move that i would, in fact, expect from our best contemporary filmmakers.
RIP martin amis.