If you look at the Wikipedia entry or any other biography for Rudolph Höss, it suggests a long and distinguished career within the armed forces. Iron and Merit Crosses, long service and bravery medals and a variety of SS awards, and a man who was promoted through the ranks over the course of ten years from a humble private in the SS to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
THE INTERROGATION is an important film making landmark as it represents the first Israeli director to make a film about such a subject. Using details from Höss’s own autobiography, written while he was awaiting trial for his crimes, Erez Pery has constructed an intimate examination of the mindset and motivation of Höss through a series of interrogations conducted by a Polish investigation judge. The film is predominantly composed of the conversations between the two, as the judge attempts to get Höss to admit to the full detail and horror of his crimes in a “perfect confession” when others have failed.
The setting is sparse and bleak, a cold grey chamber with stains dripping down the walls that the judge Albert (Maciej Marcewski) makes a futile attempt to brighten by hanging a picture on the wall. Albert and Höss (Romanus Fuhrmann) sit facing across a table with a recording device as Albert teases out the details of Höss’s career and crimes. Fuhrmann portrays Höss with a cold indifference, describing events of his time at the camp in an offhand monotone that feels more in tune with dictating a regular shopping list than outlining some of the most horrific acts ever perpetrated by humanity. Pery’s camera is often positioned at Furhmann’s waist level and shooting upwards towards his face in long takes, giving his statements gravitas by elevating his position rather than his tone of voice, but it’s the steady, emotionless delivery that makes the description of the acts that much more disturbing.
What kind of man would be capable of perpetrating such a devastating level of horror?
Albert’s questioning brings the two sides of Höss’s career into sharp contrast: Höss was instrumental in the use of the pesticide Zyklon B in enabling the gas chambers to carry out their killings in such devastating volumes, but he was simply attempting to fulfil the orders given to him by Himmler and others. For Albert, the perfect confession isn’t simply a documentation of the crimes, but an understanding of what motivates such a man to commit them and to stand behind the defence of following orders, and he is also the viewer’s window into the humanity and compassion of the film. In contrast to the camera positions for Fuhrmann, Pery’s direct close-ups into Marcewski’s haunted expression, attempting to remain equally impassive as he hears the overwhelming, distressing particulars of Höss’s life at the camp challenge the viewer to explore their own emotions.
While most of THE INTERROGATION consists of the confrontations in the prison, it’s the brief moments where Albert isn’t talking to Höss that give the film its greatest emotional heft. The interrogation takes an unspoken toll on Albert as we see him silently returning home to his wife after a day of discussion and attempting to achieve some sense of closure by a visit to Höss after his hanging near to the Auschwitz camp. Pery, a film scholar making his directorial debut here, has achieved a considerable amount through his use of restraint: the lack of acting and filming melodrama puts the size of Höss’s crimes into perspective, but also deftly exposes the emotional weight and consequence of such crimes through both perpetrator and observer in chilling fashion.
The Interrogation will be showing on the 26th October at 5pm at Cambridge Arts Picturehouse.
httpvh://youtu.be/JuBTZ0TN3zA