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FESTIVAL COVERAGE<br />
The Zone of Interest modulates its approach in precisely one<br />
sequence, where Glazer ties an incipient narrative development<br />
<strong>—</strong> Rudolf informing Hedwig that he has been transferred and that<br />
they may have to move <strong>—</strong> to his usual formal assertiveness in a<br />
manner reminiscent of Alan Clarke. It’s the one scene where<br />
Glazer does something other than keep the Höss family at an<br />
alienating remove. Winner of this year’s Grand Prix, The Zone of<br />
Interest has already been <strong>—</strong> and will continue to be <strong>—</strong> praised for<br />
its unfailing control and precision; and such statements do stand<br />
to reason. But if Glazer does not step a foot wrong, it’s because<br />
he does not risk much to begin with. The film is, to be sure,<br />
formally and conceptually coherent, even airtight. But coherence<br />
is not the same thing as audacity, and with the arguable<br />
exception of the film’s final moments, which briefly venture into<br />
territory that recalls Sergei Loznitsa’s Austerlitz (2016), Glazer has<br />
made a film that, very much despite its subject, plays it safe. <strong>—</strong><br />
LAWRENCE GARCIA<br />
THE SWEET EAST<br />
Sean Price Williams<br />
An easy bit of advice to give to any filmmaker who tries, whether<br />
with journalistic integrity or well-meaning folksy soapboxery, to<br />
make a film about our contemporary political moment: don’t. It’s<br />
easy enough advice to follow, and it frees the advice-ee from the<br />
label of cringe that can only come from the same culture that<br />
had initially welcomed, begged, for content of the now. Already,<br />
the subcultures of yesteryear have metastasized into something<br />
stranger and even more ephemeral in this, and the mere public<br />
naming of any new political group is enough to destroy it as if it<br />
were borne of a curse.<br />
The Sweet East, the debut feature of veteran cinematographer<br />
Sean Price Williams, does not follow this advice. Thankfully, there<br />
is no soapbox in sight. Instead, the characters representing our<br />
various political moments mold themselves to more ancient<br />
sources, like Shakespearean villeins or the many ghosts of<br />
history. They form an American landscape void of values and full<br />
of snake oil, traversed by normies whose curiosity could get<br />
them killed.<br />
The normie in question here is Lillian (Talia Ryder), whose<br />
anodyne class trip to Washington, D. C. immediately halts thanks<br />
to a Pizzagate conspirator’s viable threats. Lillian is whisked<br />
from her classmates by strangers modeled after antifa, who, like<br />
all the groups here, promise that they uniquely have Lillian’s best<br />
interests in mind until their values give way to more petty<br />
concerns. Key among these users and abusers of Lillian is Simon<br />
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