The trailer for the movie "The Area of Interest"/Lev Cinema
Laszlo Nemesh, director of the Oscar-winning Holocaust film "Son of Saul", sharply criticized Jonathan Glazer - director of "Zone of Interest", which also won the award for best international film - after the latter's controversial speech at the ceremony.
"I like 'Area of Interest' a lot and think it's an important film. When you make a film like this, you have a responsibility that comes with it," the director told the Variety website, as part of an article about the storm caused by the speech, in which Glazer linked his film to the violence on October 7 and the war in Gaza
"Glaser clearly failed to understand this responsibility, including in relation to the destruction of European Jewry. And it was disappointing that the elite of the film industry cheered him on."
Glazer's film is about the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hess, and his family living near the camp.
The film takes a radical approach to the representation of the Holocaust, and chooses not to show the murder industry but to focus on the peaceful lives of the Nazis, with the horror depicted only from a distance, at the edge of the frame or through elements such as lighting or sound.
Laszlo Nemesh's film, the previous Holocaust film that won an Oscar, deals with the Sonderkommando prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau, who are responsible for removing the bodies of the murdered.
He takes an almost opposite approach, and enters into the destruction process itself.
Glazer at the 2024 Oscars/GettyImages, Arturo Holmes
Laszlo Freckles at the 2016 Oscars/Reuters
Glazer was the only winner at the Oscar ceremony that took place this week to refer to the war in Gaza in his speech, in a speech that claimed that Israel is using the Holocaust to justify the occupation.
The speech was rather vague, and Glaser also choked up during it.
"All our choices in the film are meant to reflect the present and confront us with it," he said of the acclaimed film.
"Our film shows what a low dehumanization can lead us to. We stand here as people who refuse to have their Judaism and the Holocaust used for an occupation that harmed so many innocent people, whether it's the victims of the October Shevah or the ongoing attack on Gaza."
Later, Glazer referred in his speech to one of the characters in the film - a Christian girl named Alexandra, who tries to help the Jewish prisoners in the camp and even leaves them food.
"How do we resist this dehumanization? Alexandra chose to resist and I dedicate the film to her memory and her resistance."
More in Walla!
The Oscar winning speech that linked the Holocaust to Gaza was banal and embarrassing, but it had one positive point
To the full article
The network - and not only it - was filled with reactions to the speech, and despite its certain ambivalence, the leading sentiment was that it was a distinctly pro-Palestinian speech.
Even in Israel and in Jewish organizations, he was harshly criticized, among other things as a result of the puzzling wording of the words, which caused many to understand it as a statement of denial of the Jewish people.
Glazer was not interviewed after the ceremony and did not publish a clarification of the matter.
More on the same topic:
Leslow Freckles
area of interest
Oscar 2024