The Grey Zone

Auschwitz. There are prisoners working in the unit called the Sonderkommando; their job is to accompany people into the gas chambers, then carry the bodies and run the ovens. In return they live a few months longer, eat better, and are killed themselves when their time is up. This group is planning a revolt. Women prisoners are smuggling powder out of a factory. At the same time they find a girl who survived the chamber and try to hide her. Tim Blake Nelson writes and directs. David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino and Allan Corduner are in the cast. It rests on real events. The Sonderkommando revolt took place at Auschwitz in October 1944; a crematorium was blown up and the rising was crushed. The women who smuggled the powder were caught and hanged. Among its sources is the account of Miklós Nyiszli, who was forced to work as a doctor in the camp. The grey zone of the title describes the position of this unit: people of whom it cannot be said with certainty whether they were victims or accomplices. The film does not answer that and absolves nobody. The telling is cold and distant; no emotional music, no heroism, and nothing softened in showing the violence. Tim Blake Nelson is better known as an actor; the film began as a play he wrote. Who it is for: viewers who follow heavy films about the Holocaust and narratives of moral uncertainty. Who it is not for: it is extremely hard, there is no hope, and some scenes are difficult to endure.