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(Clicka qui per la versione Italiana)
British director Jonathan Glazer, who already directed several rock videos,
debuted with Sexy Beast (2000), a distorted and neurotic take on the
caper genre. In fact, most of the film takes place before the actual heist.
A lot of the film's value depends on the psychological confrontation between
the two protagonists of the first half, and that confrontation is not always
credible. The characters are sketchy at best and whatever we learn about them
does not really add depth to the conflict. The women are particularly
inexpressive, and the feared gangster is not all that ruthless. In fact,
it is not clear at all why he inspires so much fear.
Several scenes are gratuitous, unless they only serve the purpose of
giving actors a chance to show their talent (e.g., who cares that
Don makes a fuss about smoking on the plane).
The main asset of the film is the direction, which is elliptical and
fragmentary in a surreal/freudian manner. Flashbacks are particularly
innovative (compare with The Limey).
The film swings from room-based Pinter drama (the living room conversations
among the four friends, albeit a little boring and pointless) to Hollywoodian
action movie.
Plump retired gangster Gal is suntanning by the swimming pool,
enjoying the luxury of his Spanish villa, being aroused sexually by the view of
his young Spanish servant sweeping the patio. He is happily married to an
attractive lady, Deedee.
Suddenly, a boulder rolling down from the mountain spoils the quiet of his
retreat. The boulder narrowly misses Gal and plunges in the pool. When Deedee
returns from shopping, she finds Gal and the boy in the pool, trying to
move the rock.
The couple has two British friends who visit them frequently: the timid Aitch
and another attractive lady, Jackie.
It is their duty to inform Gal that an old acquaitance from
the criminal underworld, Don, is coming to fetch him for some kind of robbery.
They all tremble just at hearing Don's name. Gal is determined to keep the
promise he made to his wife, of retiring from crime.
That night Gal dreams of having lunch at a table set in the desert and of
being machine gunned by a masked demon on a horse.
Don, who arrives the following morning by plane from England, is
vicious and abusive. He is unwelcome by Deedee and feared by Gal,
who can literally hardly speak in Don's presence.
Don is determined to have Gal join the gang.
In one of the film's most engaging constructions, Don describes how Stan
told him that Teddy, a crime boss, wants him to put together a gang.
We see how Teddy met Harry at an orgy, and Harry happens to be the chairman
of a futuristic, high-security bank whose safety boxes must contain millions.
Teddy personally surveys the place (he drops only an empty cigarette box in
his safety box, while Harry watches him through the cameras).
Teddy decides that it is "doable" and that's how Don ended up in Spain to
offer Gal the job. Don takes Gal to a bar and then to the beach and keeps
insisting.
Their life of leisure is shattered by the guest, who
offends their guests
(Don leaks that he slept with Jackie, and it turns out that Aitch has always known),
pisses on the bathroom
carpet and assaults them in the middle of the night.
Faced with Gal's stubborn attitude, Don finds a way to insult also his wife
(she was a former porn-star). THen he finally leaves. But on the plane he
refuses to put off his cigarette and is arrested. Released after he threatens
to accuse the staff of sexually abusing him, Don returns to the villa and
violently confronts Gal. The Spanish boy aims a gun at him, but Don easily
disarms him. Deedee also has a gun.
Now Gal is in England, staying at a hotel and eating with others at a
restaurant, taking orders from Teddy. Teddy wonders why Don is disappeared,
but Gal pretends he knows nothing about it.
In the meantime, the boy is refilling the swimming pool after the boulder
has been removed and the floor rebuilt.
Gal and the others practice in a swimming pool, where they have to drill
a tunnel to the bank.
A flashback shows Deedee shooting Don. While Gal works at the underwater
tunnel, he keeps seeing flashbacks of Don agonizing, of them kicking and
punching him, of Deedee shooting Don again to finish him off.
Finally the tunnel is completed and the gangsters can swim like subs into
the room of the safety boxes and steal money, jewels, etc. Gal hides a
jewel for his wife. Everything goes well and the robbers celebrate at
the restaurant. But Teddy is still puzzled by Don's disappearance and
decides to give Gal a ride to the airport. On the way, they stop at Harry's
place and Teddy coldly kills him in front of Gal. Gal is terrorized but still
refuses to explain what happened to Don. Teddy lets him go and Don returns
to the villa.
The four friends and the Spanish boy are again enjoying the quiet, relaxed,
sunny atmosphere. Don is buried at the bottom of the swimming pool.
Birth (2004)
Under the Skin (2013)
The Fall (2019) and
First Light (2020)
are shorts.
The German-language film
The Zone of Interest (2023) is a very loose adaptation of Martin Amis' 2014 novel,
which was Amiss second novel about the Holocaust after "Times Arrow" (1991).
The novel is the story of a Nazi officer who wants to avenge his wife's
affair with another officer. The fact that the officers are in charge
of an extermination camp is almost a secondary issue.
The movie is a quasi-documentarian depiction of the everyday life of an extermination camp's commandant and his family: the concentration camp is constantly in
the background of the various family activities.
Completely missing in the movie are the internal monologues, which drive the
action in the novel.
Last but not least, the fictional characters of the novel are replaced in the
movie by real-life commandant
Rudolf Hoess and his wife Hedwig.
The action takes place during World War II.
Rudolf Hoess is the
commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
He, his wife Hedwig and their five children live in a charming mansion on the
other side of the wall of the concentration camp.
We see that the family and the servants get to choose which belongings of
murdered Jews they want to keep.
Everything goes on so normally in the house that it takes a while to realize that Jews are being murdered next door.
We truly understand it when Hoess sits down with engineers who have developed
an efficient way to manage the gas chambers.
One day Rudolf takes his two boys at the river but then notices a piece of flesh in the water and rushes to bring the children home where they are thoroughly bathed.
At night, while Rudolf is reading a fairy tale to his children, we see a Polish girl walk near the camp (filmed in negative exposure) and bring food to the prisoners of the camp.
Hedwig's mother visits and Hedwig indulges in showing her how nice their life is there.
However, Rudolf is ordered to transfer to Berlin. He tells Hedwig only one week later. She refuses to move and asks to remain in Auschwitz with the children.
Rudolf asks his superiors and they approve.
The Polish girl (again filmed in negative exposure) finds sheet music composed by a Jewish prisoner and plays it on the piano at her home. She leaves more food for the prisoners. One day two Jews are caught fighting over an apple that she left and we understand that they are summarily executed.
Hedwig's mother finally realizes what is happening in the nearby camp and, distraught, leaves without saying a word, simply leaving a note that Hedwig burns and we don't get to read.
Rudolf is so successful in his new career in Berlin that he gets assigned the
transfer of 700,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.
He attends a party of Nazi officers and then calls Hedwig and tells her that he's coming back.
We then see him walk down the stairs. He seems to throw up.
The film jumps forward several decades to the museum of Auschwitz where clothes,
shoes and other belongings of Jews are on display. Two people are washing the
floors and dusting off the exhibits.
Back to Rudolf, he throws up but then continues walking down the stairs.
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