This is necessarily a two-part review as I first saw it in the cinema in Hungarian (I misread the information online) and so watched it purely on the visual level without understanding any dialogue. The second viewing was online with English subtitles.
It was quite interesting to experience the film purely on a visual level. The dialogue seemed to be very largely at a notably low level although whether this was due to lack of understanding of the language may be the case. But music and diegetic and non-diegetic sound was a crucial part of it. However, it was subtle and not overdone and invariably enhanced the visuals, which were characterized by a high number/ratio of lengthy shots – not Bela Tarr long but just longer than usual; perhaps to make us too more carefully on what we were seeing.
The camp itself was not such a visual presence as I had thought it was going to be – we saw smoke rising in the distance, the majority of the shots in the Commandant’s garden had the roof of the camp visible but not in a melodramatic or ‘looming over the scene’ way. This was subtly done, but emphatic enough to be noticeable and remind us of where we were and what was going on out of sight.
The relationships between the three main characters were, it seemed to me from this version, not nearly as significant as in the novel. In the film we the audience simply seemed to be observers of people living their lives and their relationships did not seem important -but obviously my view may well change when IL have seen a version where I can actually hear the written script.
Now however, having seen it with understandable dialogue, there is far more to say. The comments were made as I watched the film.
The opening was fascinating. Just a black screen with strange, disconcerting music/sound (difficult to know which the most appropriate term is as it really was a unique combination of the two, to my ears at least). The black screen lasted for a very long time – a disconcertingly long time, in fact. The accompanying soundscape was all strings and somehow seemed to be in all keys and yet no keys. Gradually one discerned faint birdsong and then the music stopped and we only heard the birdsong. Then the screen burst into light and colour and we were in an idyllic summer riverside family picnic setting with half-heard conversations in the background. We then cut to the return home at night. A very conscious dark/light contrast, visually and thematically was being clearly established from the very start of the film. This is later developed with the remarks about how well the plants are living, growing and flourishing in the garden but most subtly done; it is us, the audience, who appreciate the black irony of this happening next door to the concentration camp.
As the Commandant Rudolf Hoss goes to work, we see, for the first time, a guard tower, guards and a wall, after which we cut to a gorgeous garden, with the wall and tower elements still in the background. There is a quiet but constant sound in the background – shouted words, a soft constant roar but it is not immediately apparent exactly what it is (although we know…). In a later brief scene at work, there is a discussion about the mechanics of mass burning. Here, as with the rest of the film, the horrific elements are referenced only in glancing, often ambiguously but we the audience are aware, even if the characters in the film are seemingly not.
New clothes are delivered to the family and again although their source is not mentioned, again we know – and there is no acknowledgement from the mother Hedwig as to the source – she simply judges what is best for whom. All very normal/ and ordinary. In a subsequent scene with father and son out riding together, we see guards and prisoners for the first time but they are not acknowledged in any way by the two, a recurrent visual motif throughout the film and one of the reasons why it is so powerful.
Thirty minutes into the film there is a short, vivid little scene where we have a low angle facial close-up of a young guard, expressionless with a background of smoke, and train arrival and some shouting and thuds. One word is clearly heard-‘Papa’. Very brief and so very powerful. This scene is the first one where we are more directly ‘told’ what is happening –but we see nothing.
By this stage two contrasting colour palettes have been established – not just light/dark as with the opening but, more subtly, the grey of the (man-made) house and buildings and the (natural) green of the garden with flourishing plants and new life.
A feature of this film and one of its great strengths is how the characters never address the reality of what is happening but we are constantly and actively doing so. This shows in one scene where the father urgently pulls the children out of the river (the picnic site we saw in the opening shot) but without giving them, or us, any reason. But it is only a little later that we realize that the river has got polluted with ashes from the furnace fires in the camp. With all the scenes in the garden there is the constant, sometimes very subtle, panoply of sounds from the camp – occasional shouts, dogs barking. It is all very subtly done, although very occasionally there are some very brief dramatic moments. One particularly effective moment was when we are shown a close-up of some flowers that the Commandant’s wife is particularly proud of to show her friends while in the background we hear raised voices and then a man screaming – and did we hear a few rifle shots? It’s the accumulation of smaller moments that make the film so powerful like the daughter hesitantly picking put the (presumably Jewish) folk/traditional song on the piano. But there are also moments where suddenly, viciousness is shockingly revealed as when Hedwig tells the serving girl who has done something wrong that ‘she could have her ashes scattered in the garden’ – surely a clear indication that Hedwig is perfectly well aware of exactly what is happening at the bottom of her cherished garden.
As we approach the end of the film we have another very brief scene that reminds us unambiguously whmat is happening, with the two boys in the guard house and shots of thick black plumed smoke flowing across the blue sky. This is a grim reminder that the ‘problem’ being discussed by Hoss at the start involving the efficient mass disposal of bodies has clearly been solved. At the very end I did wonder if the final shots of Hoss descending a staircase into darkness, intercut with modern-day cleaners at the preserved gas ovens in Auschwitz was slightly too obvious and unsubtle – but this only occurred to me after having finished watching, and not at the moment of viewing which suggests that in context, it worked.
The film ends as it began with a black screen and with similar strange music/soundscape.
A remarkably subtle and powerful film.