Amateur movie with Big budget

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I'm really pleased this angle has been addressed in film, rather than solely in literature. The Sonderkommando and Kapo perspective is too often overlooked and based on stereotype and it was interesting to have them as the focus. The role of the Germans and Nazis have been re-addressed more and more in films like 'Good' and 'The Reader' and have been thoroughly explored through literature. While the role of the Sonderkommando is rarely a focus of literature, due to the traditional 'black and white' 'good and evil' popular portrayal, perhaps the changing consideration of 'ordinary Germans' have given rise to the focus on this, which is interesting. After reading Borowski's work, I had hoped a film of this nature would have been more popular, as it definitely aids understanding of the event.The execution was good, I though it raised interesting messages behind the mindset of a sonderkommando, as well as could be done through the media of film. The acting was average, although Arquette was surprisingly convincing.What does annoy me about this film, and perhaps all recreations of this nature is the need for redemption and logical progression. The film groups together various historically accounts to generate a fictitious chronology of events, which complete alter the history. This is particularly dangerous given the claims given at the start that this is based on a true story. I can understand why they've done it, for character progression and dramatisation and it is frustrating. The redemption in this films comes with the prevailing of morality, rather than survival. As with all blockbusters, such as 'Schindler's List,' 'Life is Beautiful' 'Pianist' etc.... I feel this is giving a message, almost reason to the holocaust, which I think is dangerous. Perhaps my qualms lie more with the representation in film than the execution of this specific film...The link to Levi's work is clear, and it brings to light an important issue overlooked. It's executed well, and camera work is shocking and realistic. I would recommend watching this film, it is both enlightening and educational, if not a tad commercialised.

Tim Blake Nelson's brave 'The Grey Zone' tells the story of a group of Sonderkommandos, the Jewish workers who were selected to gather the Jewish 'prisoners'to the gas chambers and then dispose of their bodies by burning them. The film is brutal in its portrayal and hardly leaves anything to the imagination. It also raises the question of survival. 'The Grey Zone' shows what happened to those who have fought, those who have submitted and surrendered, those who have refused to give up and those who have accepted their fate. All of them ultimately experienced the same fate. This is no movie with an uplifting ending or a message of hope. It is unsympathetic to the viewer. As director and writer, Tim Blake Nelson does a fine job by telling the story and fleshing out the characters. The editing is well done. The execution is slightly on the poorer side. It gives the feel of a TV movie. In the acting department it is Harvey Keitel and Mira Sorvino who stand out. Keitel is well acquainted with negative roles and thus it is no surprise that he pulls off the part of the Nazi officer. Sorvino has a smaller part but she displays Dina's anguish, courage and despair with skill. David Arquette is better than his usual. 'The Grey Zone' is a worth seeing because it depicts another side of the Holocaust with a brutally honest treatment and it is thought provoking because while it is easier for some to judge as an outsider, it raises the question of what one, what you, would have done had you been in the same shoes, knowing that you were going to die no matter what.

The Grey Zone explores well-covered territory from a unique angle: that of the Jewish prisoners who prolonged their lives by four months by becoming members of a unit used to herd their fellow prisoners into the gas chambers. Inevitably, such a subject matter raises the question of to what lengths the viewer would go in order to stay alive, and the cost to the people who found themselves capable of colluding with their captors. When one new arrival to Auschwitz, ferried straight from the train to the shower's changing room, loudly challenges Hoffman (David Arquette) over his and his friend's breezy instructions to remember the number of the hook on which they hang their clothes so that they can find them after the shower, Hoffman beats him to a bloody pulp – as if for forcing him to confront what he is doing to his people. Despite this, the performances are subdued for the most part, the prisoner's attitudes to their situation almost matter-of-fact. Given fine food and alcohol in payment for their work, they live in ivory towers that have been stained by human ashes.The survival of a young girl after showering in the Nazi's deadly gas just as the men are preparing to stage their revolt triggers an emotional crisis amongst the members of the unit, with some insisting she be killed for their protection and others demanding she be allowed to live. They face a dilemma that is mirrored by those of the German soldiers who mill around the girl uncertainly after the protesters have all been killed. There is a line beyond which even those who have grown almost inhumanly inured to killing will hesitate to step. The girl, alone and defenceless, unlike the masses herded into the showers, forces them to put a face to their victims and ejects them from their oddly cocooned existence.The film is an adaptation of a stage play, apparently, and this fact is evident in the dialogue, which sometimes seems unreal, as if the speakers are somehow detached from the emotions they are supposed to be feeling. This may be deliberate, another example of the tamping down of their true emotions, but its sometimes distracting. Despite this, the performances are good, especially that of Harvey Keitel who seems to grow into the part of the German officer who knows he has lost touch with everything that made him human.

This film would have been far more convincing, had the entire cast not spoken with American accents. This is absurdity at its finest. Far and few Europeans at the time spoke fluent English, let alone perfected the American accent! LOL! Arquette (mother was Jewish - and the daughter of a Holocaust refugee from Poland) was miscast. Harvey Keitel (b. Bklyn, umpteenth sweet, Jewish NYer) gave the only convincing performance, since he had no choice but to speak in German tongue. Sorvino, Buscemi, and Natasha Lyonne (b. Braunstein, umpteenth sweet, Jewish NYer) were hardly in the film. While far from slow-moving, "The Grey Zone" was definitely no "Schindler's List" or "Europa, Europa."