The gray area
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The gray area |
| Original title | The Gray Zone |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2001 |
| length | 108 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Tim Blake Nelson |
| script | Tim Blake Nelson |
| production |
Pamela Koffler Avi Lerner Danny Lerner Tim Blake Nelson Christine Vachon |
| music | Jeff Danna |
| camera | Russell Lee Fine |
| cut |
Tim Blake Nelson Michelle Botticelli |
| occupation | |
| |
Die Grauzone is a film drama by Tim Blake Nelson from 2001. The film deals with the problem of the Jewish forced laborers in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp , who did the lowest work in order to live a few weeks longer. In Germany, the drama, produced in the USA, was only released in cinemas around four years later.
action
The film follows two storylines that meet towards the end: the Jewish doctor Miklós Nyiszli has to perform various pathological services for the concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele and can thus save his family members, who are also imprisoned in the concentration camp, from certain death several times. He often talks to the SS-Oberscharführer Erich Mußfeldt , who supervises him , who accuses him of betraying his people.
Meanwhile, the 12th Sonderkommando is preparing an uprising in which several crematoria are to be destroyed. They are supported by some women who work in the Union ammunition factory and supply them with explosives. The work of the Sonderkommando and the psychological stress associated with it is shown again and again: The Sonderkommandos must first pretend to the prisoners destined to die from Zyklon B that there is no danger in order to then clear their bodies from the gas chambers and then burn them, as well as to sort their belongings.
The planned uprising is in jeopardy when some of the women are caught with the explosives destined for the uprising. The women are tortured and their fellow prisoners shot in front of their eyes to testify for whom the explosives were intended. You choose to commit suicide before either woman can say anything about it. The precarious situation prompted the Sonderkommandos - after hesitating beforehand - to decide to carry out the uprising the next day. The night before, a small miracle occurred: a girl survived the gas chamber. The Sonderkommando rescues her and takes her to the Jewish doctor Nyiszli, who can completely revive the girl. He even made Mußfeldt promise to release the girl.
The next day, October 7, 1944, the uprising broke out: the demolition of crematorium 3, which was operated by Polish prisoners, was the starting signal for the uprising. Guns are distributed to stop the advancing guards . During the storming of the crematoria, the Hungarian special command (which had previously saved the little girl) succeeds in blowing up her crematorium - Crematorium 1. The surviving prisoners are executed after the uprising, including the little girl.
The background to the uprising was that the prisoners were aware that no previous Sonderkommando had survived longer than four months. They also knew that the Red Army was getting closer and closer and that the National Socialist machinery of extermination had to be delayed and slowed down so that as many people as possible could be freed.
The two large crematoria (1 and 3) will be destroyed and not rebuilt. The rebelling 12th Sonderkommando - the only one who dared to revolt - was followed by only one Sonderkommando before the liberation.
background
The basis for the film is a report by Miklós Nyiszli published in 1946 , initially under the Hungarian title Dr. Mengele boncoloorvosa voltam az Auschwitz-i krematoriumban , in German as I was Doctor Mengele's assistant. A coroner in Auschwitz (2004); in current translation In the Beyond Humanity. A coroner in Auschwitz. Edited by Friedrich Herber. Berlin: Dietz, 2005, ISBN 3-320-02061-7 .
Further authentic reports from this period come from the diaries of and interviews with former members of the Sonderkommando.
The film started in Germany on January 27, 2005, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
criticism
While many critics, such as Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune , who considers the “seriousness and quality” of the film to be “indisputable”, rate the film as a success, there are also many critical voices - writes Megan Turner in the New York Post : "Nelson's cruelly unsentimental approach [...] robs the film of all humanity and only leaves behind a terrifying, but strangely emotionless drama."
Awards
In 2001, director Tim Blake Nelson was nominated for the Seashell Award at the Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián . In 2003 there was a nomination for awards from the Political Film Society in the categories Exposé and Human Rights.
Web links
- The gray area in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- official homepage
- The gray area atRotten Tomatoes(English)
- Background information and film reviews for special command studies
Individual evidence
- ↑ One can't deny its seriousness and quality. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ In the original: Nelson's brutally unsentimental approach ... sucks the humanity from the film, leaving behind an horrific but weirdly unemotional spectacle. Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 10, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
