Hitler’s right-hand man, Hess commanded the Auschwitz extermination camp, helped write “Mein Kampf” and, in the film, combines the life of a tyrant and a traditional family man
At the table set for dinner, in a beautiful country house in southern Poland in the 1940s, a German family gathers. The garden of the structure recalls the set of a film from the golden age of Hollywood, if it were not for one macabre detail: the house shares walls with Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp where thousands of Jews were exterminated. The family of Nazi Party deputy leader Rudolf Hess, his wife and two children live there.
This is the motto of Area of interestby Jonathan Glazer (Reincarnation AND Under the skin), nominated for an Oscar as best film. The story is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Martin Amis (1949-2023), which portrays the “intimacy” of the family life of the man Hitler chose to command Auschwitz.
Who was Rudolf Hess (in real life)
Rudolf Hess He was born in Egypt in 1894 and moved to Germany while still young. In 1919 he entered the University of Munich and came into contact with the Nazi Party’s founding “living space” theory, which preached the conquest of new territories and the exclusion of people due to an alleged “superiority classification”.
While still at university, he was enchanted when he listened to Hitler’s speech and began to form a friendship with the future dictator. In 1922 he joined the Nazi Party and began distributing anti-Semitic leaflets in Munich.
Hitler and Hess are arrested after the failed Munich Putsch coup of 1923. Even closer to the Nazi leader, Hess helps write Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”), Hitler’s anti-Semitic guide – Hitler is said to have dictated part of the work to his associates, Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess, while in prison.
He gradually became Hitler’s right-hand man and vice-chancellor of Nazi Germany. In 1940 he took command of Auschwitz and moved with his newly formed family to the vicinity of the prison, abandoning the agricultural life they intended to lead.
There he built a flower garden so that his children would not notice the atrocities that were happening in the neighborhood, hiding, for example, the prison chimney from the children’s view.
Researchers say the Hess family lived a life of luxury and boasted jewelry and furs from Jewish prisoners, although Hess claimed his wife knew little about the Nazi extermination.
It was in the concentration center that Hess opted for execution using gas cameras, considered more lethal: with this method they killed more than 2,000 people a day.
In 1941 he decided to leave alone for Scotland, to propose a peace treaty with the allies. He flies on a plane and parachutes near Glasgow, where he is immediately arrested. Furious, Hitler considers him mad and orders him killed.
After World War II, he tried to move his family to South America, but they were still found in northern Germany. The woman reports her husband after seeing her son beaten by the British police. When he is captured, he denies being Hess but is unmasked by the ring studded with the couple’s names.
At the Nuremberg trials he was a witness and confessed to many of his crimes. In 1946 he was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1986, at the age of 93, his body was found in prison with signs of hanging.
Tension area
With commendable performances by the couple Rudolf Hess and Hedwig Hess, played by Cristiano Friedel AND Sandra HüllerZona de Intereste does not start from the premise of highlighting traumatic memories: its triumph lies precisely in not appearing to be a standard production on Nazism.
The tension lies in the omniscience of the spectator, who knows that outside the home there is a terrible reality that seems insurmountable for the margarine commercial scenario created by the Hess family, which seeks to suffocate – at times, literally – the human suffering experienced by of the house, beyond those walls.
At the same time, it shows the reality of a family considered common in the European bourgeoisie, with which viewers can frighteningly identify. In this way, some critics believe that the film reflects Hannah Arendt’s theory on the banality of evil.
The challenge of playing a tyrant and family man that Rudolf Hess considered exemplary – in the mold of the 1940s – earned praise Cristiano FriedelGerman actor who plays Hess.
The film premiered in Brazilian cinemas on February 15.
Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
