''The Grey Zone'' is a 2001 movie written and directed by
Tim Blake Nelson and starring
David Arquette,
Steve Buscemi
Steven Vincent Buscemi ( ,As stated in interviews by Buscemi himself, some may insist that his pronunciation of his own name is "wrong" because it does not match the original Italian pronunciation as well. It is not uncommon for people to pronou ...
,
Harvey Keitel,
Mira Sorvino, and
Daniel Benzali. It is based on the book ''Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account'' written by Dr.
Miklós Nyiszli
Miklós Nyiszli (17 June 1901 – 5 May 1956) was a Hungarian prisoner of Jewish heritage at Auschwitz concentration camp. Nyiszli, his wife, and young daughter, were transported to Auschwitz in June 1944. Upon his arrival, Nyiszli vol ...
.
The title comes from a chapter in the book ''
The Drowned and the Saved
''The Drowned and the Saved'' ( it, I sommersi e i salvati) is a book of essays by Italian-Jewish author and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi on life and death in the Nazi extermination camps, drawing on his personal experience as a survivor of Aus ...
'' by
Holocaust survivor Primo Levi. The film tells the story of the
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
''
Sonderkommando'' XII in the
Auschwitz death camp in October 1944. These prisoners were made to assist the camp's guards in shepherding their victims to the
gas chambers and then disposing of their bodies in the ovens.
Plot
The film opens in October 1944, in the
Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A small group of ''
Sonderkommando'', prisoners assigned to dispose of the bodies of other dead prisoners, are plotting an
insurrection that, they hope, will destroy at least one of the camp's four
crematoria and gas chambers. They are receiving firearms from
Polish citizens in the nearby village and gunpowder from the UNIO munitions factory; the female prisoners who work in the UNIO are smuggling the powder to the men's camp amid the bodies of their dead workers. When the women's activity is eventually discovered by the Germans they are savagely
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
d but they don't reveal the plot. A
Hungarian-Jewish doctor,
Miklós Nyiszli
Miklós Nyiszli (17 June 1901 – 5 May 1956) was a Hungarian prisoner of Jewish heritage at Auschwitz concentration camp. Nyiszli, his wife, and young daughter, were transported to Auschwitz in June 1944. Upon his arrival, Nyiszli vol ...
, who works for the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
doctor
Josef Mengele in an experimental medical lab, has received permission from Mengele to visit his wife and daughter in the women's
labor camp. Nyiszli is concerned about the safety of his family and believes that Mengele's orders will keep them from the gas chambers.
A new trainload of
Hungarian Jewish prisoners arrives and are sent to the gas chambers. As the group is given instructions about "delousing", a fearful, angry man in the group begins shouting questions at one of the ''Sonderkommandos'', Hoffman, who has been issuing the instructions. Hoffman beats him to death in an outburst of frustration, to make the man stop talking. After the gassing of this group, a badly shaken Hoffman finds a young girl alive beneath a pile of bodies. He removes her from the chamber and after informing the leader of the insurgency, Schlermer, takes her to a storage room and summons Nyiszli, who revives her. The group decides to hide her in the children's camp. While the prisoners hide her in a dressing room,
SS-''
Oberscharführer''
Eric Muhsfeldt
Erich Mußfeldt also spelled Erich Muhsfeldt (18 February 1913 – 24 January 1948) was a German war criminal.
He served as an SS NCO in three extermination camps during World War II in occupied Poland and Germany: Auschwitz, Majdanek and ...
suddenly walks in. Noticing that one of the prisoners present, Abramowics, is there illegally, he shoots him, prompting the girl to scream and to be discovered. Nyiszli then takes Muhsfeldt outside and tells him about the uprising but cannot tell him where or when it will begin. Muhsfeldt agrees to protect the young girl after the uprising is suppressed.
The insurrection begins and Crematorium IV is destroyed with the smuggled explosives. All the ''Sonderkommando'' prisoners who survive the explosions and gunfights with the SS are captured. They are held until the fire in the crematorium is extinguished, after which they are executed. Hoffmann and a fellow prisoner, Rosenthal, conclude that the girl will not be set free after she is forced to watch the executions. After all captives are shot, the girl is allowed to flee toward the main gate of the camp. Before she can run very far, Muhsfeldt draws his pistol and shoots her. The film closes with a voice-over recitation by the dead girl.
Cast
Production and release
The film was based upon Nelson's play, adapted from Nyiszli's book.
An 80 percent scale "model" of the Birkenau camp was built near
Sofia,
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
for the production of the film using the original architectural plans.
In the same year that he portrayed Eric Muhsfeldt in ''The Grey Zone'', Keitel played the opposite role of a U.S. Army denazification investigator in the film ''
Taking Sides''.
The film was first released on DVD on March 18, 2003. It was released on DVD in the
UK, in 2008.
Reception
The film holds a 68% "fresh" rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
, based on 82 reviews, with the consensus "A grim and devastating tale of the Holocaust." In 2009,
Roger Ebert included it in his "Great Movies" series.
Awards
The film received the 2002
National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award.
See also
* ''
Escape from Sobibor'' (1987) film about that camp's prisoners' revolt and escape
* ''
Son of Saul
''Son of Saul'' ( hu, Saul fia) is a 2015 Hungarian historical drama film directed by László Nemes, in his feature directorial debut, and co-written by Nemes and Clara Royer. It is set in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, ...
'' (2015), a Hungarian film with a similar plot
*
List of Holocaust films
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grey Zone, The
2001 films
2000s war drama films
American war drama films
Films about Jews and Judaism
Films set in Poland
Films set in the 1940s
Films shot in Bulgaria
Holocaust films
Books about death
Films directed by Tim Blake Nelson
Films produced by Christine Vachon
Films scored by Jeff Danna
Killer Films films
Lionsgate films
Nu Image films
American World War II films
World War II films based on actual events
Cultural depictions of Josef Mengele
2001 drama films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films