THE ZONE OF INTEREST - Interview with Christian Friedel

welcome Christian friedel uh you are the lead in Jonathan Glazer's latest film The Zone of interest that premiered earlier this year at the gun Film Festival competition and got the second prize the grand jury prize and it's not playing here at the Zer film festival in your film you play a father a husband and a commandant of alitz rudolfus who is living with his family right next to the Concentration Camp the film is haunting and holy unique it's uh a truly New Perspective on World War II in a very overcrowded sub Sher I'd say and I go so far to call it a modern Masterpiece already it's it's absolutely thank you so much and it's all all of this is true yes glad we agree on this can you tell us how you went from playing a resistant fighter George Elsa in 13 minutes to now on the other side of the spectrum uh rol first yeah it's a very interesting Journey because it started with the white ribbon I played a school teacher in a movie uh set before the first world war starts and you can see the children in the white ribbon maybe as a future perpetrators of the second world war and then I played the Jewish character in the film closed season Fleet the Nazis and after that the resistance fighter G ASA and now I changed the site I think all of these characters are human beings and I think uh in this uh project from Jonathan it's so interesting that this is a movie about us about human beings doing terrible things to other human beings and to play Rudolph H as a human being that was the challenge and for me the experience I never forget and yes it's it's sometimes I'm I'm a part of Babylon Berlin too and it's set in this uh late 20s early 30s uh and it's it's an area we have to tell stories from the area and I think this unique project you said it's a piece of art it's very unique it's it's it's really important relevant and yeah to be a part of this I'm I'm really glad and proud of it yeah perspective plays a main role in the film we stay with the family we don't really go across that wall what I was wondering watching the film is because the the soundscape is so important absolutely in it how much of that was was present for you on the day recording and how much of that was just added in in post production it it's a lot of post post production and it it was important for us um because the shoot was um the main thing I think the summer shoot was uh shoot in in aitz in very close to the concentration cap not in the original House the house still exists but it's it's it was not possible there's only one scene um we shot in the basement of the house um when I wash my genitals um but most of the scenes we shot in in a a rebuilding very close to the original concentration camp and this area was very uh important not only for Jonathan and his team or for this Vision important for us as actors too and we know there will be a lot of post- production there will be a lot of uh visual effects uh a lot of sound effects you say that because this movie you can you can watch this movie and you can hear a different movie it's two movies in in one movie and this really exciting and um but we when we shoot the scenes we never heard anything so it it's and it's very important because we act I think this shoot was like a search search for normality for the banality of EV for um yeah ordinary life sometimes boring and we were alone in this house surrounded by a multicamera system um 360° and with different angles we never know where are the cameras and what camera or angle is important but it it was not important for us to know that and in the garden for example there the wall was there the garden was there and it was an amazing set design but there was an green screen and all these additional things I was really surprised when I saw the movie for the first time and hear all the sound effects yeah and and this combination it's um yeah it's an experience it's very haunting to to experience it alongside it I think overall your character in the story kind of serves a a well he's he's a servant to the to the larger story that that is going on um how do you go about than than finding your character when maybe you uh your character definitely goes beyond the wall that we never get to see how much does he does he bring back and how do you yeah get there for your character it was a really it was a challenge to create this character and the most important things for me were the conversations with Jonathan and Sandra we had a lot of conversations we had to postpone the shoot because of the co um situation we had a lot of time to for Preparation investigation and and to create this character because we want to see this commant as an evil person we want to see the perpetrator but we we don't see him like that he's a father he's interesed in nature and Jonathan said one time to me the most important thing to create this character is when you speak the truth then lie with your eyes and if your eyes tell the truth then lie with your mouth and this is a combination because I was not allowed to to share an emot too much emotion or too much uh and sometimes the thoughts um when I was at the work I have this all in my head and I have a lot of subtexts in my head but I was not allowed to share this with the audience and that was a really great challenge I was deep inside of me and that was sometimes really intense and um yeah really special I think the film is is modern in many ways like you said the cameras all around the house it's it has a modern look obviously the setting uh isn't and how how relevant do you think this this story is for maybe a 24-hour news cycle where everything seems extremely close and we get to have that wall between the atrocities that still happen in the world is is that something that also came through while you were shooting the film or was it this like a self-contained thing I think this was it's it's really important to see and watch this movie as a modern movie it's it's not only a movie about an incredible crime an unbelievable crime uh the Holocaust it's not a movie with this historical context it's a movie about us and the decisions we made defines us and we live in very complicated political times and yeah it's it's really interesting the decision of this family was we want to have a family um the father wants to be a good worker a good bureaucrat wants to do the best for the system and it's it's it's horrible we know that um but sometimes if you translate it in our times or if the political system change what what's your decision in this what's and and we all have this inside of us um it's not it's it's it's not important what religion we have or sexuality or something it's inside of us um Jonathan said there are two wolfes inside of us a good wolf and a bad wolf and which wolf we feed the most will dominate us and and I think this is this is think for me the most important thing in this film because this was the reason Jonathan wants to he he works with with natural light with very sharp cameras um and observe this sometimes he said it's big brother in a Nazi house and um but it's important um because this is the relevance for us today um to see ourselves and to question or to ask do we learn from our history do we I hope but yeah yeah I feel like that's a perfect uh place to end it here uh go experience the film yourself it's great we can both say it's great right you were in it I saw it already twice it's amazing so thanks so much cool thank you so [Music] much

Channel: Quiet On Set Podcast

Views: 7,944

Keywords: film review, film, short review, movie review, ewan graf, quiet on set, quiet on set podcast, film podcast, video podcast, new movies, weekly podcast, film community, movie ranking, tier list, movie spoilers, movie discussion, filmmaking, cinematography, oscars, awards, christian friedel, the zone of interest, wwii, auschwitz, rudolf höss, movie interview, interview, jonathan glazer, sandra hüller, world war 2, a24, cannes, oscar nominated, oscars 2024

Id: 8Gyx8MHfXz8

Length: 9min 20sec (560 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 29 2024