This week two films hit theaters that absolutely deserve to be seen on the big screen. Next to Dennis Villeneuve’s blockbuster giant “Dune 2“, which once again heads to the desert planet, also begins Jonathan Glazer’s “The zone of interest“ – an impressive, uncomfortable and unusual investigation into the inhumane crimes and systematic mass murders in the concentration camps.
“Dune 2”: Sci-Fi bombast in a class of its own
There are probably only a handful of films this year that are as highly anticipated as Dune 2. And rightly so, because the science fiction epic is a bombastic blockbuster cinema that is rarely seen in this quality these days. Genre fans will not only get something here, but also a sophisticated story that tackles topics such as religion, class struggle and fanaticism.
We gave the sequel the highest rating in our FILMSTARTS review. Author Joanna Müller writes in her conclusion:
“‘Dune: Part Two’ is the excellent continuation of the first part, surpassing it again in almost every respect. With breathtaking visual power, aural bombast and great performances, she immerses us completely in the complex world of ‘Dune’. This is science fiction cinema at the highest level, which Denis Villeneuve will hopefully expand further with ‘Dune Messiah’.”
“The Zone Of Interest”: This movie will keep you entertained for days
How was life possible in the shadow of Auschwitz? This question has been discussed in society for decades – and perhaps never answered as precisely as in Jonathan Glazer’s exceptional work “The Zone Of Interest”, which is definitely one of the most exciting films of the current cinema year. The emphasis is on the life of the Höß family, where father Rudolf Höß is commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The family garden and the place where the inhuman atrocities took place are separated only by a wall – and you can always hear the horror on the other side. But for the sake of their own idyll, the family is willing to ignore the unimaginable horror…
In our FILMSTARTS review, editor-in-chief Christoph Petersen awards a fantastic 4.5 out of 5 possible stars and comes to the following verdict:
“A film like a series of punches in the stomach! Of course, one might wonder whether the “banality of evil,” which Hannah Arendt calls, has not now disappeared from the once profound understanding of the category of a worn-out commonplace. But if you say it conceptually as brilliantly and consistently as Jonathan Glazer did in ‘The Zone Of Interest’, it still goes straight to your core and this time particularly deeply.”