THE GREY ZONE (2002) 
Original title: The gray zone
Origin: United States. Length: 108 min.
Color. Languages: English, German.
subtitled Filmed in Bulgaria
CREDITS Director: Tim Blake Nelson
Screenwriter: Tim Blake Nelson, on his play and the book of Miklos Nyiszli (Auschwitz: a doctor's testimony)
Producer: Avi Lerner, Danny Lerner, Christine Vachon
Photo: Russell Lee Fine
Music: Jeff Danna. Claudio Abbado leads "Alto Rhapsody"
Edition: Michelle Botticelli, Tim Blake Nelson
Casting: Will Carter, David Vaccari, Bernard Ttelsey
production designer, Maria Durkovic
Artwork: Johnny Breedt, Tatiana Lund
Sets: Valentina Madenova
Costumes Marina Draghici
Makeup: Sofia Davidova, Ivon Ivanova, Claudia Moser
Sound: Chris Barnett
Special Effects: Willie Botha, Dikov Vasill
Visual Effects: Janos Pilenyi Ariel Enriquez Saulog
PLAYERS
David Arquette (Hoffman)
David Chandler (Rosenthal)
Alan Corduner (Dr. Miklos Nyisli)
Steve Buscemi (Hesch Abramovics)
Harvey Keitel (SS Oberscharfuhrer Eric Muhsfeldt)
Henry Stram /Josef Mengele)
Karmela Grigorova (Niña)
Mira Sorvino (Dina)
Natasha Lyonne (Rosa)
COMENTARIOS
En 1996 Blake Nelson llevó al teatro esta obra. Ya en el comienzo de la película, los títulos nos informan que los nazis no emplearon a alemanes para conducir a los judíos a las cámaras de gas y luego llevar sus cadáveres a los crematorios, en el campo de Birkenau. Emplearon a judíos, en grupos llamados Sonderkommandos, a quienes were allowed to eat sensibly and live in the country in better shape than other prisoners. But after a few months, they too were executed. The story was later told by Dr. Miklos Nyisli, a highly trained Jewish physician, who in turn to stay alive, he volunteered for medical experiments by Dr. Mengele. Simultaneously, we see the arrival of a convoy of Hungarian Jews. With almost surreal accompaniment of Jewish musicians playing Strauss waltzes are taken to the gas chambers. On arrival should hang their clothes on hangers numbered before entering the chambers to take a shower and be disinfected. Then the door is closed. The next task is to select the clothes and other possessions of the exterminated by the Germans or the Jews. After execution, the Jews of komanndo loaded the bodies to the ovens and the chamber is cleaned, ready for a new human cargo. Meanwhile, women from a nearby munitions factory, smuggled gunpowder for Jewish prisoners at Birkenau, which are preparing a revolt. When the Nazis discover that the powder has disappeared, tortured some workers to obtain information about who received. The guards are killed one by one to the women in the barracks while the strong hope that their turn and His death put an end to the other deaths. The revolt is given in two crematoria, some Nazis killed, participants in the revolt were shot, but the crematoria are not rebuilt. The Russians are going. Meanwhile, progress in Poland, going to Auschwitz.
The commander of Birkenau, Muhsfeldt, alos try to control prisoners psychologically. But the deeper question that makes them, is why a simple Jew agrees to perform this task in the kommando to prolong his life for just four months.
The film is centered on the Sonderkommando 12, one of 13 who acted in Birkenau. Muhsfeldt was considered as a war criminal, tried, sentenced to death and executed.
For the effort meant to bring to the screen the little-known uprising in Birkenau and starkly portray Nazi barbarism, the Political Film Society has nominated U.S. gray area as best film and best film on human rights, 2002 .
ROGER EBERT (Adaptation)
"How can you really know what I could do to stay alive, until it be done? I know most of us answer: nothing "So says a member of the Sonderkommando, a group of Jews in the extermination camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, who sends his fellow Jews to the gas chambers and then have the bodies crematorium and ashes. For this work, they clean sheets, extra food, cigarettes and four extra months of life. Next the end of the war four months accounted for the extra chance of survival. Could anyone refuse to accept this opportunity? Tim Blake Nelson presents
considerations and moral choices in a system that is totally immoral, perverse. If everyone in the field is destined to die, is an obligation of man to die at the time that was assigned or is your obligation to help? Since both options finally become in death, is more noble to refuse to cooperate or to cooperate? No one can answer these questions without having been there.
Film inspired by the revolt of October 7, 1944, when members fail Sonderkoomando 12 destroyed the four crematoria of the camp. Because they were not rebuilt, many lives were able to be saved. But others were lost when the Nazis used physical and mental torture to try to find the prisoners were laforma gunpowder and weapons
This film is different from many others because it deals with the everyday details of working groups, lying to prisoners when they were led to the gas chambers, killed, burned their bodies and disposed of his remains. All steps in this process are clearly shown in a sequence that begins when a victim Jewish accuses another Jew, a guard, of lying or ends with hands banging on the door of the gas chamber.
"Charge" - is the name given to the bodies of workers. "We have a heavy load today."
Is it part of human nature that we harden when we act on our own survival? "Those who can sacrifice for an ideal ethics are extraordinary exceptions to this rule? When Rosa and Dina, two women prisoners who worked in the munitions factory are tortured to reveal the secret of gunpowder and the common methods fail, are faced with their partners and the interviewer repeated the question and each negative kills one of the prisoners. What is the correct behavior in this case? What if all die, does this affect the election?
In a sense, the murder committed by the Nazis is no worse than the mental torture caused to their victims. Death is part of nature, every day. But the sadistic death in a scenario forcing victims to face impossible choices and knowing that these elections are impossible, it is confusion, numbness and evil. Hoffman says, one of the victims: "I knew we were neighbors. In 20 minutes the whole family and all his future will be gone from this earth. " Knowledge of this loss by the victim is worse than death.
There is no happy ending, except the end of the war. There is no consolation to the victims. It's a movie about choices that seem to cause differences, about trying to act with honor in a closed system where the honor lies death. You might think: if no one will know, but finally, I will know?. Yes, but then you're dead, then who will know? What matters? On the other hand, live knowing that you've taken shamefully is another way to die - a way to kill the human need to protect ourselves. The gray area refers to a world where all are covered with gray ash of death, and has spent so much of this that nobody has
account ...
be screened May 21 at 18.30 in the Museum of the Shoa, Montevideo 919, Buenos Aires
