Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
id1005056551
On the one hand, part of me would think, “Well, wait, some of these people probably oppose what’s happening in Gaza. Are they really not allowed to enjoy a day in the sun because their government is committing war crimes that they’re not in a position to stop?” But another part of me would recoil at this joyful embrace of life. “If my country were directly committing atrocities, I hope I’d at least have the good grace to be deeply depressed about it,” I’d think.
id1005056537
Are we obligated to at least have the good grace to be depressed? Is it acceptable to embrace happiness when surrounded by so much evil?
id1005056441
unrelenting misery will not motivate action—and action should be the ultimate goal here.
id1005056392
The hero in The Zone of Interest isn’t a Nazi who, unlike the Hösses, has the good grace to be depressed. Rather, it’s a Polish girl—based on a real person, Alexandra Bistron-Kotodziejczyk, whom Glazer dedicated his Oscar to—that the film shows sneaking up to Auschwitz in the dead of night, hiding apples across a worksite for the starving prisoners to find the next day. In Glazer’s words:
That small act of resistance, the simple, almost holy act of leaving food, is crucial because it is the one point of light. I really thought I couldn’t make the film at that point. I kept ringing my producer, Jim, and saying: ‘I’m getting out. I can’t do this. It’s just too dark.’ It felt impossible to just show the utter darkness, so I was looking for the light somewhere, and I found it in her. She is the force for good.
id1005056401
The objective for each of us is to be a force for good, to create some light in the darkness.