The Banality of the Banality of Evil

The Zone of Interest (2023) is one of the products of Western culture that expresses a fascination with the so-called banality of evil. In his Oscar acceptance speech, its director, Jonathan Glazer, condemned the instrumentalisation of the Holocaust in the genocide in Gaza, for which he received both support and condemnation. The point of the article is that his statement is more political than his award-winning film. The continuous fascination with the banality of evil is at the core of the blockade that prevents the imperialist hegemon from reflecting on the core of his own project, which is again being realized in the brutal killing of Palestinians. We compare the film with Son of Soul (Saul fia, 2015), in which the political position has found a more profound artistic realisation, even though it is opposed to the filmmaker’s own opinions.

The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!