What Was The Last Movie You Watched and Rate it!

Lursa said:

The banality of the family was the point. And it was pulled out of the novel intentionally as the focus for that and other reasons. I found it excellent and awful. The killings were only supposed to be hinted at but it's not like everyone...movie watchers and the Hoss family and villagers... didnt know it was happening. That was another point. People loving their pets and horses and ignoring what was happening 'next door.' Still being petty and sarcastic about a previous Jewish neighbor who's possessions they ended up having a shot at buying at auction.

I did have to read some reviews to get a better understanding of the ending scenes where it shifted between him leaving the building and the future. I read 3 different takes on it and one really did resonate...that he realized that all he had proudly accomplished would, in the future, only focus on the victims and not his efficient and effective work.

I watched it twice, kind of. It's subtitled and you do need to take in the scale and proximity of the wall. You need to get a good grasp of the setting. And the period house and furnishings were so interesting (I rarely watch old movies that have that stuff.)

So the 2nd time I fast forwarded past some things and rewound others to better view and understand.

Some reviewers say it was pretentious. It was very self-aware. But that is what contrasted so perfectly with the family's ability to not even acknowledge what was happening next door (except as an exercise in efficiency and success for Hoss, the father.) I give it an 8.5/10. It's fascinating but not fun. The score is so creepy I turned the sound down during the credits.

As an aside, Hoss was a real person and charged and hung in 1947. This isnt in the movie so it's not a spoiler.

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PoS said:

Well, I thought the banality was just a pretentious gimmick. Even though I havent read the source book, I have read up on Hoss' life in other works, and the whole movie just isnt accurate.

When they interrogated him after his capture, Hoss admitted that his family knew what was going on, so the movie's depiction of them being in some kind of bubble like that wasnt accurate. In fact, his kids did go out to where the prisoners were farming and even had armbands with triangles on them stitched by their nanny to help the make believe play they were doing. The eldest son also had a pistol, and he would shoot into the garden, almost hitting the prisoners.

The movie also shows Hoss as a soft spoken wimp, but in reality he was a hardcore Nazi. The real reason he was transferred out of Auschwitz was because he had an affair with a prisoner in the camp and got her pregnant. That was never shown in the movie. Hoss never had second thoughts about what he did until the last minute, when he was awaiting execution.

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