ANDOscar 2024 was a mortgaged victory Best International Film to The area of interest. However, it was not foreseeable touching invitation to stop the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of the director Jonathan Glazer.
In fact, his emotional speech did not materialize limited to thanking the Academy who chose him among other valid authors – but it led to an evening full of glamour a painfully current topic: the dead of all sides have equal dignity.
The area of interest wins an Oscar 2024: a film of tragic relevance
The distressing parallel with the story told by the award-winning film, underlines once again the urgency of peace between peoples.
Based on the book of the same name by Martin Amis, The area of interest tells the life of Rudolf Höss who, with his family, lives in a comfortable house in a quiet neighborhood.
Life seems to flow peacefully between household chores, garden work and convivial moments. A few meters away, however, there is the Auschwitz concentration camp, of which he is the director.. Among the performers, a very talented Sandra Hüller, who was nominated as Best Leading Actress for Anatomy of a fall.
Jonathan Glazer (right) Oscar 2024 for “The Zone of Interest” (Getty Images)
The Nazi horror and the extermination of the Jews are not told through crude images but in an even more cruel and effective estrangement, the contrast between a sinisterly bucolic world and immense tragedy. The area of interest proposes the drama of war through an unusual but no less effective point of view; it is a political film which, by telling the past, shows the present and preludes a bitter future.
The words of director Jonathan Glazer
Glazer’s words are pronounced with moving seriousness: «Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It has shaped our past and our present.”
Sandra Hüller in “The area of interest”. (The Wonder Pictures)
«We are here as men who refuse who refuse their being Jews and the Holocaust are being diverted from an occupation that brought so many innocent people into conflict. Whether it is the victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack in Gaza – all victims of this dehumanization, How can we resist?”.
In reality, there was little applause coming from the special audience of directors, actors and professionals. If this appeal did not reach the famous people present, outside the Dolby Theater the desire for peace was felt.
Some protesters against the war in Gaza approached the Dolby Theater and, in front of the red carpet where the stars parade, they reiterated what was forgotten this evening: “while you look, the bombs are raining down there.”
Even social networks have mobilized with slogans and catchy phrases such as “Gaza takes over the Oscars” to bring attention to the sad war events. If a film is not yet capable of stopping an unjust war, it is nevertheless capable of shaking consciences.
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