@jordyep I don't think the point I'm about to make is going to be lost on you, after all, the start of your comment highlights that you've noted "the banality of evil" and it's juxtaposition, but I do find it somewhat ironic that you end your comment with, "I became increasingly numb towards the repetitive nature, eventually feeling rather indifferent towards the experience", which I wonder might be the whole point of the movie: that those depicted became increasingly numb (... see the rest of your sentence) towards the genocide they were committing.
We, the viewer, is a participant in that indifference. If we were to be shown the horrors taking place over the wall we would quite rightly be snapped back to no longer dismissing them for the 1.5 hour duration. Perhaps not showing them simulates becoming numb to them over years? Having said that, I had a desperately uncomfortable feeling throughout brought on by the hints and reminders of the horrors off-screen and the benefit of hindsight given to us by the history books.
I was one of the people you suggest saw the exact same thing as you, but had a different reaction to it.
8.5/10
@etdj I’m not saying they needed to show the holocaust, I acknowledge that not showing it is one of its strengths. But to me hitting the indifference emotion for 90 minutes isn’t that interesting, especially when it isn’t super heady or conceptual besides that. Sure, it brings the ‘there’s still tragedy hidden all around us’ point home effectively, but it isn’t much of a climax or arc. It’s too thin to build your whole movie around that, it doesn’t leave much of an impression. With the way it’s constructed now I feel like this should’ve been a 20-30 minute short.
Shout by JordyVIP 8BlockedParent2024-02-06T13:01:20Z
Quite a frustrating watch. It has this great concept of showing mundane, everyday life juxtaposed with horrifying imagery and sound hanging in the background, many reviewers have referred to it as the banality of evil. It's an inventive way of doing a Holocaust movie, but there's not much else to this. Glazer spreads the concept really thin over the 105 minute runtime, and I started to check out around the halfway mark. It's lacking in structure (no character arcs or big plot developments), every time it threatens to go somewhere it turns out to be an excuse to use the same bag of tricks. The acting and stilted cinematography are both pretty decent, but because they're both meant to serve the understated tone and nothing else, it can't fall back on those aspects. Again, if the tone is enough to carry this experimental film for you, your experience might be different. However, I became increasingly numb towards the repetitive nature, eventually feeling rather indifferent towards the experience (which is the last thing I want with a movie like this).
4.5/10