Review of The Grey Zone (2001) by Reilly J — 29 May 2010
WARNING MAY CONTAIN MINOR SPOILERS.
This is the definition of haunting film.
This sleeper directed by Tim Blake Nelson is about the Sonderkomando who were Hungarian Jews employed during the Holocaust to usher fellow Jews into the gas chamber and then process and destroy bodies in exchange for luxuries for four months before they were exterminated themselves and replaced with a new team.
Out of all the Holocaust films I've seen I gotta say that this is the most bleak, most depressing of them all. It's true that most Holocaust films like Schindler's List and The Pianist are depressing, but if you think about them they are usually inspiring. Schindler's List ended on a happy note with all those Jews safely working away in the factory, even kinda funny seeing they are making dodgey shells for the Germans, The Pianist ended with him becoming a famous pianist and there was the regretful Nazi, Life is Beautiful ended with the father dead but the mother and child safe, those were all good endings, if only all the stories ended like that.
This one does not, there are no happy endings, no humour, no regretful Nazis, in fact most of the Jews in the film are dodgey, in doing this it is being true to the nature of the Holocaust. It may be depressing, but so was the Holocaust.
This bleak film is loaded with moral dellemars and ethical debates and slight glimpses of hope throughout and is guarnteed to shock, disturb and depress you. I don't want to spoil the ending, but I'll tell you now I was shaking!
This ranks along side Schindler's List and Life is Beautiful as one of the best Holocaust films ever made and gets 5 stars from me.
This review of The Grey Zone (2001) was written by Reilly J on 29 May 2010.
The Grey Zone has generally received positive reviews.
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