THE CURSE out now

Really enjoyed this, feels incredibly relevant today given America's current involvement in an ongoing genocide campaign. For that alone I think it's one of the most important films of the 2020s, even if I wouldn't put it near my Best Of

why did the ONE close-up shot of Höss with smokestacks in the back have to go so hard

Kinda surprised I liked this. I always thought I wouldn’t enjoy the coldness of Glazer’s films but everything I’ve seen from him so far (sexy beast, under the skin, and zone of interest) has worked for me even if I didn’t fully grasp it.

It was the sound

Those were gunshots in the background?

Two things:

Many reviews are expressing a confusion with the "dreamlike" scenes. I viewed the purpose of using infrared/black and white scenes of the girl leaving apples for the prisoners as quite exacting and meaningful. Those are the only scenes that represent a complete moral and visual inversion. So Glazer decided to not only include scenes of humanity within the horrors, but to shoot it in such a way that visually looks the complete opposite. To take this further, it could possibly be comment on how often and today, victims of war/genocide and those trying to help them are represented or seen in a different light depending on one's upbringing, education, national history or, well, propagandizing news media.

The ending broke me. Hoess begins retching in the stairwell before it cuts to the to modern day Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum showing the ultimate result of his life's work. Importantly, before the movie ends, it brings us back to Hoess in that stairwell, who quickly pulls himself together and seems to continue on his merry way and the film ends. You could almost imagine him doing a jumping heel click and skipping away. The vomiting is a brief reflection of what the audience was *feeling*, but the moment at the very end is Glazer taking us by the shoulders, violently shaking us, and screaming in our face that this is how we're *acting*. It's how many will leave the theater in just a few moments. It's much easier on the psyche to simply brush off and ignore ongoing atrocities.

Just saw this movie tonight - it’s great to reflect on, but I had trouble enjoying the viewing experience. Maybe I was expecting too much, but there was very little by way of plot and character development. I mean, there would be minutes and minutes devoted to someone walking or an idle conversation. And I get it, it’s necessary for the idea of the movie - an ordinary life against the backdrop of depravity - but it made it hard for me to be sucked into the story and enjoy what’s happening.

This movie did a fantastic job of highlighting how evil the Nazis were though. We’ve seen plenty of movies where Nazis are directly interacting with and violently attacking Jewish people, but this movie handles that violence with more sophistication. It almost makes a movie like Schindler’s List feel like a melodrama. We have to imagine the gunshots. We have to imagine the screams from the gas chamber. We have to imagine the violence. And it makes you wonder how a woman could be so desperate to raise her family next door to this concentration camp.

Two thoughts: Does anyone else think Hoss vomiting ant the end was his body’s subconscious reaction to all the horror and guilt? And was that growling sound effect the materialization of his conscience?

Also, I would love for slavery and/or Jim Crow to get this kinda treatment. We don’t need to see anymore people being whipped. We need to see white women in rocking chairs, drinking lemonade, pleased with the system of human atrocity that afforded them their lifestyle.

@twitch writing that one as we speak

I am? I was tryna do this contemporary paid in full instead

“I guess the Third Reich had marital problems too” - my pretty conservative seemingly pro-Israel dad

that’s progress! I’ll take it

This makes me want to rewatch it

packed theater for this at 1045 am on a sunday

Oh they love these nazis huh

Ima do a double feature with this and poor things tmr night

Gonna see this tmr instead or Wednesday. The times over lap with Poor things so can’t do a double feature like I wanted.

Rewatching tonight

actually ill rewatch tom when tickets are only 7$

Is it out on streamings?