Cinematic Articulation of the Death Camp in The Son of Saul (2015) and The Zone of Interest (2023)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31637/epsir-2024-570Keywords:
concentration camp, Holocaust, Auschwitz, historical cinema, Nazism, metonymy, out-of-field, soundAbstract
Introduction: Holocaust cinema has a privileged space in its narrative: the extermination camp. This paper seeks to identify how it is articulated in Son of Saul (Nemes, 2015) and The Zone of Interest (Glazer, 2024), which share a common reference point: Auschwitz. Methodology: A hermeneutic and symbolic analysis of both films is carried out, with a particular focus on their cinematic construction of the concentration camp. Results: In Son of Saul the visual perspective of the main character is decisive, which delimits what is shown on screen, while in The Zone of Interest the fundamental element is the suggestive character of the sound, accompanied by the subtlety of the visual metonymies. Discussion: There are connections between the two films in the aspect analysed, such as the out-of-field, the metonymy of the Holocaust and the sound off, worked by Nemes and Glazer in different ways, but both starting from a common idea: the spectator's knowledge of the horror that was Auschwitz. Conclusions: Both films address the difficulty of finding new strategies for representing the Holocaust in cinema, and they are among the most stimulating proposals in recent cinema since the landmark documentary Shoah (Lanzmann, 1985).
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