"The Zone of Interest" or banality of evil

It is the new movie released in 2023 (in 2024 here). I watched it yesterday, and it left a strong impression.

I could say that this is a movie about a family who 3 years ago was able to move to the place they dreamed of outside the town and start a new life for their family there. Build a beautiful house, arrange flower beds, gazebos, an orangery, and a pool. Their life is completely ordinary. In the morning, the children go to school, and the head of the family goes to work. The wife takes care of the house and babysits the youngest daughter. Family dinner, birthday celebration, bedtime story.

If it weren't for the fact that this is World War II. And behind their high fence is a concentration camp. And the head of the family is the commandant of this camp. And this camp is Auschwitz.

What impressed me most was not the scene where the landlady and the servants share the clothes of the Jews who have just been sent to be burned. It is not the moment when the commandant is fishing near the river, and the children are playing near the water when he suddenly realizes that the ashes with the remains of the bones have been thrown into the river from the concentration camp. And not even the moment when the commandant and his son are riding horses in nature, and in the background screams of the guards of the concentration camp and shots are heard, and at this time the father tells his son that this is how a heron screams.

The monologue of the commandant's wife, where she tells him that she will not leave their new home, impressed me the most. "Führer said: go east, populate the lands and live there, and we went! Our children are happy here. I will not leave. And after the war, when all this is over, we will build a farm here, as we always wanted."

Go East? Populate the lands? But the east is Poland. They killed those people, took their homes, land, furniture, linen and even their teeth. And now they like it here, and they are not going to return it.

The next moment I realized - this is Mariupol. I remembered how Russia brought Russians en masse to the houses where the people they killed lived until recently. They all act as if they didn't just kill those people, but as if those people never existed. They simply disappeared somewhere. Even feel a little sorry for them. I remembered a real video where a realtor shows a damaged apartment to a potential buyer and says how nice it will be here (and it was before you came!!!). They are building new housing for those who came from Russia, just on the graves of locals. By the way, there is exactly such a moment in the film, when the wife tells about a Jewish woman who is buried "somewhere here" (in the garden) and how she intercepted her beautiful curtains for sale. Very beautiful curtains.

It was late, but I needed a walk. So I was just strolling aimlessly around old streets in Podil, enjoying the light rain, night air, warm lights and darkness. It was as if I was trying to convince myself that darkness isn't always scary. The darkness can even be your friend, while the worst evil is in the light.

All these pictures are taken with my smartphone - all I had with me. The last couple of street sellers were collecting their wares, and passers-by were hurrying to catch the last tram or subway to get home before the curfew.

I was surprised to see mulled wine sellers so late. These straw creatures caught my attention. The seller said: you need to drink. How did he know? I bought mulled wine and hurried home too.