Directed by Erez Pery
Israel/Germany | German w/ English subtitles | Fiction | 2016 | 80 min
Film Source: Corinth Films
Sponsor: UVM Hillel
Showtime: Sunday, October 23 | 1:45 a.m. | FH
Based on the memoirs of Rudolf Höss, the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz, The Interrogation is a taut examination of the psychological complexities of the perpetrators of the Holocaust. First-time director Erez Pery, who also co-wrote the screenplay, frames the narrative as a cat-and-mouse interrogation between Höss and a young Polish investigation judge, who’s tasked with obtaining an ironclad confession from the man who oversaw the mass killing of millions of Jews. Pery, who wrote a Ph.D. dissertation titled “The Cinematic Logic of the Nazi Death Camp and Its Influence on Modern Post War Cinema,” takes a scholar’s approach to the contemplation of man’s capacity for evil. But his assured direction provides a rare level of tension for a historical drama, including a well-executed narrative twist that upends the moral compass of the film’s daunted investigator. ~LB
*Preceded by Silence, an 11-minute animated documentary about the learned and self-imposed postwar silences of a young girl who survived the Holocaust. Co-directed by VTIFF executive director Orly Yadin, Silence was short-listed for the 1999 Academy Awards.