Sometimes banal is just banal, even if it's supposed to expose the banality of evil. But put the Auschwitz label on any footage and it's guaranteed to land an Academy Award nomination.
The film is not without merit, it emphasizes the horror by obliterating it from view. Unlike the kitschy "Boy in the Striped Pajamas", it does not juxtapose evil with innocence. The privileged lifestyle and emotional detachment of the Höss couple highlights the willful ignorance of the Germans towards the enormity of suffering they caused. But this story has been told over and over and over again, and I fail to understand how a few gimmicks like soundscape and infrared camera shots add anything new.
You may find yourself downright annoyed if you are familiar with Martin Amis' novel. The film has nothing at all to do with it and just borrows its title, which I find misleading and disrespectful. The protagonist in the novel, who is completely absent in the film, becomes infatuated with the commander's wife, and this makes her aware how sordid her life is, and that her husband is a sociopath. Contrary to this literary melodrama, the film's sole point is to portray the Nazis as emotionally vacant. That is far from the uncomfortable truth: they were passionate about what they were doing.
And while pretending to stick to the facts, the film fails to mention the real reason for the sudden recall of Höss from command: he impregnated a prisoner. There is a much better German film called "Death is my Trade" (1977) about Rudolf Höss starring Götz George, the son of a Nazi collaborator who died in the Soviet camp Sachsenhausen, incidentally where Höss committed his first mass murder. George's performance is much more involved, the film gives you a far better idea what the Nazis were like.
And if you're really interested, Höss' autobiography is far more horrifying than this bland self-absorbed example of Holokitsch, as the New Yorker's reviewer aptly phrased. You should really read a few books about Auschwitz if you seriously believe this film tells you anything about it.
The film is not without merit, it emphasizes the horror by obliterating it from view. Unlike the kitschy "Boy in the Striped Pajamas", it does not juxtapose evil with innocence. The privileged lifestyle and emotional detachment of the Höss couple highlights the willful ignorance of the Germans towards the enormity of suffering they caused. But this story has been told over and over and over again, and I fail to understand how a few gimmicks like soundscape and infrared camera shots add anything new.
You may find yourself downright annoyed if you are familiar with Martin Amis' novel. The film has nothing at all to do with it and just borrows its title, which I find misleading and disrespectful. The protagonist in the novel, who is completely absent in the film, becomes infatuated with the commander's wife, and this makes her aware how sordid her life is, and that her husband is a sociopath. Contrary to this literary melodrama, the film's sole point is to portray the Nazis as emotionally vacant. That is far from the uncomfortable truth: they were passionate about what they were doing.
And while pretending to stick to the facts, the film fails to mention the real reason for the sudden recall of Höss from command: he impregnated a prisoner. There is a much better German film called "Death is my Trade" (1977) about Rudolf Höss starring Götz George, the son of a Nazi collaborator who died in the Soviet camp Sachsenhausen, incidentally where Höss committed his first mass murder. George's performance is much more involved, the film gives you a far better idea what the Nazis were like.
And if you're really interested, Höss' autobiography is far more horrifying than this bland self-absorbed example of Holokitsch, as the New Yorker's reviewer aptly phrased. You should really read a few books about Auschwitz if you seriously believe this film tells you anything about it.