There are many scenes that will stay with me for a long time in this film. Glazer places cameras in the reconstruction of the house in which Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss lives with his family – which creates a static experience of sorts, where the camera catches people moving through scenes and rooms. The horrific noises from the camp on the other side of the walls were recorded separately, so that characters do not react to them – like the Höss’s pretend idyll in their new “Lebensraum”, it requires a high level of compartmentalisation that the film constantly undermines. It follows the father, attempting to give his children the kind of adventurous childhood with canoe rides that maybe he wanted for himself, but the ashes that wash down the river from the crematorium interrupt it, and he evacuates in a panic, fearing contamination. His shoes have to undergo a complex process of cleaning before they are worn again because as much as nothing about the murder and death in the camp itself seems to touch him, the irrefutable proof of the crimes – the remains of his victims – follow him around constantly. It’s an eloquent refusal of the claim that anyone could have been ignorant of what was truly happening at the camp (the ever-present ashes, the smoke, the noise).
Sandra Hüller’s Hedwig is indistinguishable from the staff frequently in her simple housecoats, and when she tries on the stolen goods from the prisoners – a luxurious coat, a lipstick that enters her life like an artifact someone else’s stolen life – she seems ill at ease, as if it doesn’t quite fit, as if she can’t make herself fit into this assumed life. Her mother comments that she has landed on her feet, hinting that the family has risen through the opportunity that the concentration camp provided, which matches historically with the make-up of concentration camp leadership. These people have absorbed the ideology of being “pioneers” – claiming a new space by eradicating what was there before, assuming a new life like a role they are playacting. Neither of the actors attempts to provide “a human face” – they remain closed off, as dehumanised as their actions dehumanise the victims of the holocaust. They stay that way even when the film shows them having affairs, having conversations in their separate beds.
Hedwig doles out the stolen goods to her staff like a benevolent employer but in a moment of anger, when the constantly nervous staff does not deliver precisely as expected, she threatens that her husband will spread her ashes on the fields, showcasing how far off a normal employer-employee relationship this is, like the staff are being held hostage with constant reminders that there are no limits to the power of their employers. They approach each task with fear, extreme nervousness, a tension that carries the film. Rudolf appears like an involved father, but when his voice carry over from the other side of the walls, it becomes clear what kind of man he is in his job, and how he has earned his accolades. In his living room, the giants of industry gather around a table to present a more effective and productive way to destroy human lives, German precision engineering used for the task of genocide, and the language they use deliberately obfuscates what is happening (talking about humans as “pieces”, as if they are discussing the mass production of a product, not the machinery of death). He is good at the job of human destruction, good enough to return from some unnamed scandal because the new man on the job doesn’t have the guts to finish it. He cherishes the opportunity to contribute to the “complex” task of killing the Hungarian Jewish population. He approaches this as a logistics problem, not a problem into which morals ever enter, or consideration of human life.
The most unbelievable scene – at a level of cynicism that feels more scripted than anything else in this film – is when Rudolf records a voice memo, threatening concentration camp staff with consequences if they continue to damage the lilac bushes – planted to beautify this death camp – by carelessly taking flowers, damaging the tree in the process. Höss seems genuinely distressed by this destruction. The care for flowers carries throughout the film, which often focuses on the Hösses’ garden, in which Hedwig wanders around with the baby, weeds in the heat, proudly shows it to her guests. This garden is made resplendent with the ashes of the people that are murdered and incinerated across the walls.
There are scenes that intercut the film, in which a night-vision camera (a technology that did not exist – it’s an artistic flourish that creates an alienating effect, as if the showing of humanity can not exist at the same time as the rest of the film - they occur as Rudolf reads fairy tales to his cihldren) follows a young woman who hides apples in the mud for the prisoners, and finds a canister that contains a piece of music written by an inmate. She plays that piece of music on the piano. These are short scenes of resistance, in which the prisoners are given aide, are seen as people rather than an equation to be solved, but the camera itself never enters the camp.
The scenes filmed in the surrounding nature of the camp,
along the river, with lush greenery and thickets along the shore – that somehow
feel as oppressive as the house itself (even though it is such a stark contrast
to the human-made structures, purpose-made for destruction), where in every outdoor
shot the walls and towers of the camp loom. It just intensifies the feeling
that the characters, the Hösses, are playacting in a scenery that they never
quite acknowledge. They want to be pioneers in a new “Lebensraum” but they just
appear as intruders, as foreign objects, insisting constantly they belong here
(Hedwig stays behind when Rudolf is reassigned, claiming the house as hers).
The homely scenes of family life, shared meals, children playing, don’t exist
in spite of the camp across the walls, they exist because of it. They are fed
by the violence, sometimes literally like the roses, by the stealing of
property.
