It has not been. The Snow Society, by J.A. Bayona, has been left without the long-awaited Oscar for best international film to which it aspired. The Zone of Interest, by Jonathan Glazer, started as a favorite after winning the Bafta and has taken the award in this category, also beating Perfect Days, The Staff Room and I, Captain. Previously, the emotional and blockbuster story about the tragedy of the Andes directed by the Barcelona native had also been left without the makeup and hairdressing award, which went to Poor Creatures.
“The film shows that dehumanization brings out the worst in us, and we can see it with our past and present,” said the British Glazer when collecting the award from the Puerto Rican Bad Bunny. “Whether they are the victims of the October 7 attack (Hamas), or of the ongoing offensive against Gaza, they have all been victims of this dehumanization. How do we resist?” the director pointed out with a serious gesture while the protagonist of his film, Sandra Hüller couldn’t hold back her tears.
The film, shot in German, talks about the banality of evil and observes the Holocaust from the point of view of the perpetrators in a free adaptation of the novel of the same name that Martin Amis wrote in 2014. And it narrates the supposed idyllic life of a Nazi officer in a garden house next to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Directors such as Steven Spielberg and Alfonso Cuarón have praised Glazer’s film, who had not made a feature film for ten years since Under the Skin, a cult film in which Scarlett Johansson was a deadly alien. Previously she had filmed the more discreet Reincarnation and Sexy Beast. With The Zone of Interest, which already dazzled in its premiere at the Cannes Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, he takes a giant step in his short filmography.
