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‘Zone of Interest’: The Return of Horror Radio

Livingston
Between the pandemic, studio greed and America’s love of franchise, Hollywood has become a bit of a bedazzled cadaver: bloated, leaky, beginning to rot as summer heat approaches. But the makeup is perfect.

But Covid brought new life to other forms of sequestered living. Television is in a new golden era. Streaming created a new Hollywood power broker, the influencer. And everyone and their drunk half-cousin started a podcast.

America’s audio revival could not have come sooner. True Crime is as popular a genre in the U.S. as, well, true crime as an activity. And none come truer — or more horrific — than The Zone of Interest, a rare movie that is more powerful audibly than visually. It’s radio theater with virtual reality effects. This is a movie to be experienced twice: once with captions; once without.

Directed by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast); Zone examines the real-life commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, who strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.

In a sublime decision, Zone doesn’t show a single death. Instead, it pulls a reverse Schindler’s List, the Oscar-winning masterpiece that was shot entirely in black and white, save for one Jewish girl in a red dress.

Here, we get muted colors, and the Jewish girl in a dress is cast in negative-contrast light as she rushes to feed her Polish village by sneaking food under the cloak of night.

More moving, though, is the sound that undergirds Zone. As Hedwig explains the garden to her mother-in-law, we hear the anguished cries of women and children being herded to the gas chambers (more than 1.1 million died in Auschwitz) just beyond the garden wall. As Joseph goes bird hunting on the grounds, we hear the crack of executional gunfire. The steady grind of the crematoriums is a nauseating white noise.

Some critics, particularly young ones, have dismissed the film as a foley stunt in an overdone genre. Conservative douche Ben Shapiro raked it for not showing a single Jewish death.

Apparently, Ben didn’t get the point of the story. Zone takes an intentionally clinical look at the task of murdering millions, from the paperwork to transportation to counting cash and gold-filled teeth. That the words then find purchase now is downright chilling.

It makes for a terrifying cacophony.

Open Letter to A Puppy: Three’s Company


My frenzy,,

You may have noticed a fourth slow-feed dog bowl at the supper table lately. And no, we aren’t getting a third pup — yet (though the notion draws ever nearer).

You’ve got a roommate for the next few weeks. Mochi’s mom landed an acting gig for a few weeks, so we’re pup sitting this month. Which brings the poundage in the household to at least 180, dwarfing my own. 

And you wanna know something? I love it. I guess there’s no need to pretend I’m NOT that dog guy.

I’ve come to calling you the triplets: three shades of lab/pit  brown that will play triangular tug-of-war with the same rope, share wet food and sleep on the same single pad that nursed my back last year.

You all hop in the creamsicle hatchback, wrestling over squeak balls and whimpering to greet any passing canine. I should be so warm-hearted. 

More miraculously, even your pettiness charms.

What can be more beautiful than a jealous dog? One that bodies into you so closely it could be a vital organ? After dinner and some backyard fetching, I’ll drop to the cot and try to distribute two arms to three bodies evenly, though I know it’s never enough. 

When I return from another room, you cluster at the door like I FINALLY showed up for a staff meeting I’d called hours earlier.

If it sounds like I’m complaining, you should know: This is a lot more doable than I thought. Sixty pounds may be too much for this patch dirt. But 20? Ten? A man gets to thinking.

Until then, I’d ask you to make some home space for the rest of March. But when it comes to your hearts, I guess it’s never cramped.