The Most Precious of Cargoes (2024)

Direction: Michel Hazanavicius
Country: France

From Michel Hazanavicius—the director of The Artist (2011)—The Most Precious of Cargoes marks his first animated feature, adapted from a novel by French playwright and author Jean-Claude Grumberg. The story centers on a poor woodcutter and his wife who, unable to have children, are unexpectedly blessed with a Jewish baby thrown from a moving train bound for Auschwitz. Narrated by the late Jean-Louis Trintignant—who passed away in 2022—the film is steeped in rural isolation, irrational beliefs, and the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, a hauntingly fertile ground for such a tale. Though animated, this is not an easy watch—nor should it be. It serves as a quiet, poignant resistance to the gradual and inevitable fading of our collective memory.

Hazanavicius, whose roots lie in an Eastern European Jewish family, crafts a postmodern fairy tale with simplicity and effectiveness, evoking deep emotion through acts of kindness and humanity. Even with modest dialogues, he generates a great deal of drama with a fierce kind of courage. This is reinforced by Alexandre Desplat’s oversentimental score.

The Zone of Interest (2023)

Direction: Jonathan Glazer
Country: UK / other

In The Zone of Interest, British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, known for Birth (2004) and Under the Skin (2013), delivers his finest film to date, a loose adaptation of Martin Amis' novel that rightfully earns the accolade of Best International Feature Film at the Oscars. This visually arresting and original work centers around the diligent Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel) and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), who reside in their idyllic dream house adjacent to the concentration camp. Shot on location, predominantly with natural light, the film masterfully juxtaposes the serene family life of the couple with the harrowing reality of genocidal atrocities occurring just beyond their property fence.

The characters’ examination is done patiently and incisively within a narrative that doesn’t rely on explicitness to convey its message. The film’s opening scenes are evocative of Jean Renoir’s bucolic A Day in Country, only to swiftly confront the audience with a different reality: the banality of evil. This is done with such a discretion it becomes creepy. There’s family and well-founded dreams on one side, and then selfishness, privilege, and indifference on the other.

Polish cinematographer Lukasz Zal, who previously worked with Pawel Pawlikowski in Ida (2013) and Cold War (2018), contributes to the film’s visual allure with exquisite compositional finesse and meticulous attention to detail. His framing effectively captures the narrative's haunting atmosphere, punctuated by dreamy sequences in negative black and white that offer glimpses of compassion amidst the darkness. Despite these brief moments, it’s all very disturbing and fiercely unsentimental. 

The Zone of Interest isn't your high-octane WWII thriller, emerging instead as a spellbinding and unsettling meditation on personal dreams and silent crimes. It’s a powerful and memorable affair that, offering a different perspective of the Holocaust, may feel oppressive despite the absence of explicit violence. Benefitting from impressive performances by the pair of German actors, Glazer portrays this drama with the dazzling smoothness of a movie-making natural.