In my effort to watch all the Best Picture nominated movies for 2023, I suffered through this film. It was gray and depressing and underscored by the sound of the death camp incinerators running constantly. I kept waiting for a character that humanized the story, some hint that these people who were living next door to Auschwitz were not the monsters they appeared to be… a bit of moral ambivalence, for example, in Hedwig’s understanding of her role in this horrible tableau. But there was no subtlety in this movie. Yes, Hedwig’s mother fled the scene after the belching smokestacks left her with a coughing fit. But the main characters’ obliviousness to evil in this story was unrelenting almost to the point of tedium. Yes, the theme was disturbing. Yes, I am glad I watched this. And, yes, I was relieved when it was over. But I don’t know that I learned anything new about the atrocities committed by the Nazis. This movie was more a snapshot from Hell than a nuanced exploration of how seemingly normal people could evolve into the monsters they became. I watched it on a night when long Covid had me coughing in fits and that seemed fitting.
