Topic: Zone of Interest, Zone of Revulsion

Son MinJe, Deputy Editor-in-Chief

 Why do people hate? Why do people discriminate? Why is hatred a form of a chain? Why do people risk their life to hate? What does a hatred bear? What appears into your mind after reading these questions? What keyword could be related to these sentences? If it’s reflected in history, the answer could be a national massacre, and Holocaust. It is the genocide carried out by the Nazis in World War II to annihilate Jews. Still, the hatred that Nazis expressed toward the Jews is existing in 21st century in a form in which object and subject are changed. It can’t be obliterated, and it’s an indicator for the future humanity to not repeat the same history. The reason that it can’t be obliterated is because it’s not easy to stop repeating a thing called ‘Hate’.

Imagine, someone (let’s call him or her ‘A’) killed your parents only because they were South Koreans. Wouldn’t you want to take a revenge toward the murderer? Or as the revulsion gets deeper, you will want to keep the murderer alive and make A watch their own beloved ones die because of you, so that A could feel the same emotion as you did. Like this, it’s not easy for a person to remove the inner hatred that was given by someone, and it’s hard to ask the one to endure and stop the hate since gaining the hate was not one’s fault.

 The movie, ‘Zone of Interest’, that was directed by Jonathan Glazer, was released on 30th of June, 2024. This movie received five nominations at the 96th Academy Awards, winning two award which were: Best International Feature and Best Sound. It also won the three British Academy Film Awards, and the Grand Prix at Cannes. It received 3 nominations at the Golden Globe Award and was nominated for on of the top 5 International Films of 2023 by National Board of Review. There is a saying that ‘A movie that leaves people dreadful without showing a dreadful scene.’ Also, a prominent movie critic of South Korea, Dong Jin Lee commented, ‘About the evil that has already been digested, about the good that can only be felt by the body temperature.’ (Source: Watchapedia)

The reason that this movie was praised was because of its unique and impressive scene and sound productions. The movie starts with a horrific sound with black-out screen for minutes, and according to the director, it was intended to make the audience concentrate to the scene and set a tense tone. Majority of movies concentrate on the visuals since on the screen, there is no other stimulant better than fancy scene that catches the eye to gratify the audience who is sitting right in front of a big screen. However, ‘The Zone of Interest’ is different-it focuses on the sound. Unexpectedly, it says that the most sensitive of the five senses is hearing.