Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Jonathan Glazer, Perfect Days, Madame Web, Shoshana & Wicked Little Letters

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

This week, director Jonathan Glazer talks to Simon about his Bafta award-winning and Oscar-nominated historical drama ‘The Zone of Interest, which follows the commandant of Auschwitz and his wife, as they strive to build a dream life for their family in a house next to the camp. Meanwhile, Mark gives his take on an array of new releases, including ‘Perfect Days’, Wim Wenders’ latest offering, which follows a toilet cleaner in Tokyo, who finds joy in the mundane, but beautiful, details of everyday life; ‘Madame Web’, Dakota Johnson’s first superhero outing, which sees her play a New York City paramedic who starts to show signs of clairvoyance and must protect three young women from a mysterious adversary who wants them dead; ‘Shoshana’, Michael Winterbottom’s biographical thriller about the tragic, real life love story between Shoshana Borochov and Tom Wilkin, set against the British Mandate in Palestine; and ‘Wicked Little Lies’, a star-studded British black comedy about a real life scandal that saw residents of a quaint Sussex town receive letters filled with obscenities and hilarious profanity. Plus, Mark and Simon tell us about your own cinematic events happening around the country. Timecodes (relevant only for the Vanguard - who are also ad-free!): 12:29 Perfect Days review 23:46 Box Office Top 10 29:48 Madame Web review 37:00 Jonathan Glazer interview 53:43 Shoshana review 01:03:49 What’s On 01:04:47 Wicked Little Letters review You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's show is brought to you by Child3, who very grumpily was woken up so that he could be ready for the courier when the courier knocked on the front door to say, I've come to pick up Mark's laptop. Okay, some context for this. And the courier knocked on the front door to say, I've come to pick up Mark's laptop. Okay, some context for this. If you've listened to the most recent questions, Schmeschens, that was recorded under what can only be described as difficult circumstances.

Back like the old days of COVID. Exactly, of a bilateral laptop failure. I was in Cornwall and you were in Showbiz, North London. Both of our laptops were failing. Yours was refusing to charge up and you've got one port that you can either charge or put a microphone into it, right? So you had like 11%, so you could either charge it or you couldn't be heard.

Mine, meanwhile, the hinge on it had broken on the screen and the screen was doing that thing about the lines were appearing on the screen that were gradually obliterating the entire screen. And the longer this went on, the less of the screen I could see. So I couldn't turn the thing, I couldn't make anything work. But you had to turn off because your thing was in charging.

Anyway, so then my laptop died and the good lady professor, her indoors lent me her laptop. You can tell the difference because my laptop died and the good lady professor, her indoors, lent me her laptop. You can tell the difference because my laptop's got the, this machine kills fascists on it and her laptop has got nevertheless she persisted. And then at your house this morning, I left the good lady professor, her indoors,

his laptop in your house because I looked at it and thought that's not mine. Yes. And then went out. So it is currently in its, like Emerson, Lake and Palmer when they were on tour and they had a truck each, it is currently en route from Shelby's North London to Oglamura studio.

We'll probably hear it arrive live on this podcast. I certainly hope so. And yeah, that was quite a thing. But also child three, it should be fast asleep by now. When does child three usually get up? About midday, something like that. So this is a major intrusion, but I told him it was his contribution to the podcast.

And at that point he went, oh, okay. Is he entirely nocturnal? Pretty much. Yes, it's the comedy world, you see. So what time does he go to bed? 3 a.m. Oh, right, okay, fine. So that would explain it.

Yeah, so therefore being woken up at nine to put your laptop in a, in a, in a supermarket carrier bag. Yes. There'll be an up markets supermarket. Waitrose. Almost certainly waitrose. Waitrose want to send us some sponsorship and that's fine. So today's show is brought to you by Waitrose even though they have not contributed at all Anyway, so that's all fine and dandy when it arrives. Yes, and obviously the point of it is it's got your notes on it Yes, so I don't know anything unless I remember what you're going to review. Well, I've got it written down on a piece of paper I'm going to be reviewing Perfect Days, which is the new film by Vin Wenders

I've got it written down on a piece of paper here. I'm going to be reviewing Perfect Days, which is a new film by Vin Wenders. Shashana, we interviewed Michael Winterbottom on, well, you did on the last week's show. And Wicked Little Letters, which is out in cinemas today. And also in our rundown of the top 10, we will be reviewing by popular demand,

Madame Webb, which I couldn't review last week. I wasn't offered a screening of it, but I have now seen it. Always an interesting sign if you haven't been offered a screen. Well, I mean, maybe it was just that they forgot. Or maybe because it's pants, but we'll find out. Our guest on this podcast is Jonathan Glazer, who at the BAFTAs at the weekend for his movie Zone of Interest picked up Best British Film, Best Film Not in the English Language, which as a combination is unique.

Yes. And also Best Sound, nominated for five Oscars. Very good, very good BAFTAs for them. Yes. Very good BAFTAs. Incredibly good. And anyway, so you'll hear from Jonathan Glaze. And also there's been a lot of correspondence about Zone of Interest, particularly about

the thermal imaging sequences in there, all of which come up in the conversation with Jonathan, which you'll hear a bit later on. Also in our other takes, the extra takes to take two bits and pieces, we can watch this, we can not list that. That's our top recommendations. Bonus reviews on... Bonus review of Memory, which is the new film for which... You've forgotten.

No, Jessica Chastain, thank you. See, I did that even with that, my laptop, is nominated for the Independent Spirit Awards, which I think is happening this weekend. So yes, we're doing memory, which is very good. Also, Plot Smash, where you have to guess which three, well, Mark has to guess which three films have been smashed together.

It's gonna be fine, don't worry about it. One Frame Back is films about clairvoyance, inspired by Madden Wake. Madden Way. Can anything be better? You can access everything via Apple Podcasts or you can head to extratakes.com for non-fruit related devices. If you're already a van Goddys, as always. With feeling. We salute you. Ashley in Malmö.

Hello Ashley. I want dear, I want to know what love is and I want you to show me. Actually, we haven't had that as a wise wise words have we and it's your turn this week, isn't it? It is it is I actually like that song Yeah, it's it by for an a big for an a big kind of gospely chorus at the end It's just why a foreigner called for? Because they have an English lead singer. I'll forget his name at the moment. But they are from America. So he, so this like is a foreigner in an American band.

Is that actually why they're called foreigners? I do believe that is the case. Because they're an American band with an English lead singer. I think that is correct. Okay, and that's cleared that up, thank you. It's not funny, it's not particularly entertaining, but it's cleared that up. Thank you. It's not funny. It's not particularly entertaining, but it's factually correct Do you want to repeat what the what the great redacted just told you well the great redacted him indoors him in

He said basically there's Americans and there's Brits. Yes in the band So wherever they are in the world, they're foreign at least three members of the band will be foreign Yes, you know, it's something like that. Okay, fine. And it's Lou Graham who's the lead. I think he's the lead singer who does the whole I wanna know what love is. What other hits did they have? Hold the line? No, that was Toto. Toto not to be confused with Toto Coelho, who ate cannibals. Well, that's a very strange song. Yeah. I eat cannibals. It's incredible or it's inevitable. This could be your, this could be your wise words. It's inevitable.

Hold the line. Hold the line. That was foreigner. No, the early foreigner. Yeah. The one about hold the line love isn't always on time. Waiting for a girl like you. That's their other big hit. Thank you. I'll be waiting for a girl like you to hit me with a knife. I'm confusing my Yacht Rock band. Yacht Rock doesn't exist. Yacht Rock was completely made up genre. If it's got Michael McDonald on it, it's Yacht Rock. Completely made up genre. Steely Dan, Thoroughner.

Yacht Rock. No such thing. Yeah, so exactly. It's just rock completely made up genre steely dan for honor yacht rock. It's not such thing It is so it's so exactly. It's just you know, but if you've got a yacht and you're listening to rock. It's yacht rock I don't believe that steely dan belong in a category called yacht rock anyway Ashley in Malmo. Yes Third time emailer. We're just filling weight from my laptop And one of those catalysts for the fetishism of Swedish phrases. Okay. If you remember, slide in on a shrimp sandwich. Yes.

From the olden days. Yes. I can recall two times I felt distinctly foreign when it comes to film. Okay. This was sparked by the conversation last week about, you know, feeling completely integrated and then suddenly. Suddenly realizing that you're not. Yes.

Once most recently in Sweden when taking my three-year-old daughter on her first cinematic experience, we went to see a film called Bamsa and the World's Smallest Adventure, a film about a charming, fluffy yellow bear with the strength of Popeye, the wit of Paddington, who rescues his daughter from a honey-eye-shonk-the-kids nightmare. The film did the typical kids' film thing of balancing slapstick kids' humour with sly adult references. Now I understand most Swedish but puns and idioms still stump me. Lo and behold, the references to other kids programs were lost on me but not on my daughter and the political jibes went over my head too and elicited

a chuckle from my wife. Never have I felt more alien not just in a cinema but among my own family. have I felt more alien, not just in a cinema, but among my own family. Also, a quick second time, I went to see John Wick 4 in Berlin whilst visiting there. I completely forgotten that films in Germany are often dubbed. Thus, three hours of poorly synced German dialogue and unintelligible German subtitles followed. I quickly googled the script for the film and managed to somewhat enjoy it by slyly reading the script at the same time as viewing I concede Using a mobile phone whilst viewing is a great a grave code violation, but why would you dub it and have subtitles? If it's done, you don't need the subtitle you dub it into German and then you subtitle it back into English

No, or just no anyway Thanks, I quit yes, so Google's anyway. Ashley says, thanks for keeping spirits up every weekend. Since my last correspondence, we've had a second daughter, Amelia, who now joins in with our weekly Saturday listing of the podcast, capital T, capital P, while making pancakes. She takes part in the ritual, whether she wants to or not, at this point, admittedly, down with all people who identify ironically with politically

correct ways to say Nazi. Anyway, that's Ashley and Melmo. Very good. So, and that continue, there's more correspondence on that later about when a movie suddenly takes you out of your comfort zone. I had a strange experience of this. I was at the Berlin Film Festival, the Berlin Arley, but of course I wasn't at the film festival. What I was doing is what I do. This time it was chaperoning. Because the good lady professor, her indoors,

takes 40 odd students, not 40 odd students, something around about 40 students. About 30 odd students. About 30 odd students, about 10 or normal. To the Berlin Alley. And my job is entirely to, you know, like when you have school crocodiles, like, you know, it's like a crocodile of people

and you get them across the road, you get them onto the U-Bahn and you get them off the U-Bahn and the doors are never open long enough to get all 40 off of one train at Potsdamer Platts and onto the other one. Is that barn, barn, barn, butter, auto barn? Is that the auto barn?

No, the U-Bahn, the barn, barn, barnBahn-Bahn-Auto-Bahn is the road. Yeah, that's Kraftwerk, but I was just making Kraftwerk reference to you because you used the word barn, so I thought I'd get in there. Well, maybe it's not called the subway system. Isn't that called the U-Bahn? I think it's got a big U on it. There was it, when you're on the platform that we're at, literally the line that we're on is called U2.

Every way you look, the sign says U2, U2, U2, U2. They fellow colleagues said, it's like the Apple phone debacle all over again. Also, Zoo Station is where they got their name for their album from because Zoo Station is the name of one of the undergrads. It is, yeah, absolutely. Did you get off at Zoo Station just to enjoy listening to the album? I have got off at Zoo Station before because it's Christiana F, which I think is a very, very fine film, is based on a book called We the Children of the Barnhoff Zoo, which

is the Zoo Station. Right. So I have done that. Anyway, so the point was we were seeing a couple of, there's a couple of films in the Generation Strand and one of them, which was very elusive and very kind of, a little bit woo, a little bit woo. A little bit woo, a little bit woo, yes.

But clearly the subtitling had been done in a rush. And it was one of those things in which I think the subtitles were accurately depicting exactly what was said. Oh, ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen. A laptop in a Waitrose bag. That's fantastic.

Today's program I brought to you by Waitrose and Partners. It's a great Waitrose bag, isn't it, Link? Absolutely. It's a, yeah, fine, there we go. Anyway, so the subtitling appeared to have been done by AI that was simply saying exactly what everyone on screen was saying, which often is not, because actuallyling is a kind of it's an art, it's like poetry. It's a guy called Tony Reigns who does brilliant subtitling. But it was very, very literal, which meant that it didn't make a whole bunch of sense sometimes.

I think the movie itself probably didn't make a whole bunch of sense sometimes. But anyway, there we are. So on the subject of German films. Yes. What are you going to be reviewing now that you have access to your notes? I've said what we're gonna be reviewing in general. I can add you a film. So perfect day one perfect days German Japanese co-production directed by Vim Venders Who made Kings the Road Paris, Texas Wings of Desire co-written good friend of you, too Yes, he is a good friend of you, too. Well, I saw him was in Berlin having been to a he is a good friend of you two. Last time I saw him was in Berlin having been to a U2 concert, which then stopped after two

songs because Bonner lost his voice. So then we all retired to the hotel where Vin so did. So you know, so some things worked out well. That's quite unnecessary. Anyway, go on. Anyway, okay, fine. So it starts, Japanese actor Koji Yakuushou, the premiered in competition at Cannes last year, won the prize of the ecumenical jury and best Japanese actor Koji Yaku-sho, a premiered in competition at Cannes last year, won the prize of the ecumenical jury and best actor for Koji Yaku-sho. He plays a janitor, Hirayami,

who works for the Tokyo Toilet Company. His life is very structured. He wakes up in the morning, he rolls up his bed, he steps out of his house, and there's a vending machine there. He gets a drink out of the vending machine. He gets into his van. He drives to work listening to cassettes of his favorite music, Lou Reed, Patty Smith, Nina Simone, the Kinks, because Vendor's early feature, first feature I think, was

dedicated to the Kinks. He takes great pride in his work in properly cleaning the toilets that he's attending to. He has a young co-worker, youthful co-worker, Takashi, who in one of the things is divided into four separate days. In one of them, he just wants to finish quickly and go off with his girlfriend. At lunchtime, our central hero has a sandwich in a park, exchanges glances with a similarly singular woman. He loves trees, he tends to plants, which sometimes he will get a plant from the park and he'll take it back home.

And at night, he reads before going to sleep and having expressionistically rendered dreams. And over the course of four days, we see him repeat these rituals. Here is a clip. So co-written by Takuma Takasaki and Vin Wenders, said, played very, very well in Cannes. And over the course of the movie, a series of separate interlocking stories are told in which, at one point, there's an attempt to sell some of his loved cassettes. And it turns out they're very valuable. But the whole thing is that he loves cassettes. He loves the way cassettes and turns out they're very valuable, but the whole thing is that he loves cassettes, he loves the way cassettes sound and he doesn't want to part with them because

they're worth this money. He has a visit from a young relative who he allows to come and come to work with him for a while and they have a kind of interaction and he goes to the park and he, as I said, he meets this other, apparently sort of similarly singular soul. But the whole thing plays out in this very, very sort of gentle register that everything is very amusing. It's almost like a kind of, it's almost like mindfulness as a movie. It's very much like it's not linear plot led.

It's about somebody with these rituals that their life is run by finding perfection and finding pleasure and sadness in the simplest of things. And during the course of this, we sort of learn about his buried sadnessism, this whole thing about his interaction with his niece, the discussion about how his family may or may not have been separated from him, why it is that he does the job that he does, why it is that he does the job so. So I mean, there are long scenes of him cleaning toilets really, really efficiently, making

sure everything is properly clean at one point. He discovers behind one of the tiles, what we call Noughts and Crosses, they call Tic-Tac-Toe. He starts playing a game of Tic-Tac-Toe with somebody who he doesn't know who he is. There's a documentary about VinVendors. I've mentioned this before. It was made in the 90s by Chris Rodley and Paul Joyce and it's called Vin Wenders Motion and Emotion. And it's a very good documentary, but it features Kravetzel, who is a German film critic, who says this thing, which is that he says that all Vin Wenders films can be basically summed

up with the following phrases, children are strange, aren't they? And women are strange, aren't they? Let's put another song on the jukebox. And the weird thing about it is that actually, that applies absolutely to this film, even though it is a late period vendors in which he's, he kind of moved on from doing that. But here, that idea is sort of perfectly encapsulated. The way in which we get songs played out on these cassulated, the way in which we get songs played out on these cassettes, the way in which the mechanism of the cassette is fetishized, the way in which somebody listens to the Patti Smith song, Redondo Beach.

And then they ask, they ask to listen to a song again because they love the way a cassette sounds. It is like somebody took the very essence of vendors and baked it into this film. People have loved the movie. I don't love it. I think it's good. I think it's really charming.

It's got a great central performance and it's got real heart to it. And it is easy to see why it was that Kojigushou won, as I said, won the Best Actor Award at Cannes. That absolutely makes sense because the whole film rests on his face. And there's a key scene toward the end of the film in which he has an expression on his face which is somewhere between smiling and crying, somewhere between ecstasy and despair. And the film is the very definition

of bittersweet and poignant. And I liked it. I'm not sure that I like it as much as everybody else appears to, but it is very, very ambient and very calming to the soul. I could watch it and listen to it on my phone then, just as I'm falling asleep. Still to come in this podcast, reviews year podcast, reviews of Shashana,

because we interviewed Michael Winterbottom last week, and Wicked Little Letters, which is the new film with Olivia Coleman and Jesse Buckley, reuniting them after they're stint together in The Lost Order. Also a little bit of madame Webb in there, a conversation with Jonathan Glazer, already with three BAFTAs under his arm, and wise, wise words in which Mark and I in alternating weeks have to guess the artist and terrible song during the break. This is the most easy one I've ever done because it actually includes the title of the song in the words, but I have to do that to give you the rhyme. It's just a way of going, really? I mean, probably a

10-year-old in primary school could have come up with a better rhyme. Okay. Here are the words. Here we go. We don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time. I know what this is. Well, that's it, isn't it? We can dance and party all night.

We'll be all night and have some cherry wine. And drink some cherry wine. So, we don't have to take our clothes off. Right. So that's cherry, cherry wine. Cherry wine. Okay, anyway. I, cherry wine. Cherry wine, yeah. Okay, anyway. I mean, all has been revealed, but there'll be more. I used to think that lime was and drink some cherry wine.

After this. ["The Last Song of the Year"] Simon and Mark here with another message from our good friends, NordVPN. You know me, Simon, I always love hearing from NordVPN. What do the top guys have to say this time? Well, let's recap on what we know so far, shall we? Yes, I'd love to. We all know that NordVPN can help you watch your favourite TV shows and films

that aren't available in your country. Which is fantastic, obviously, but did you know that NordVPN can also act as your cyber bodyguard? Well, shoot me down. Are you telling me that NordVPN can be the Kevin Costner to my web browsing? That's exactly what I'm telling you. NordVPN's dark web monitor feature scans the dark web to see if any of your personal information or data has been leaked or stolen and will alert you

if any information is found. Wow, at this stage, I'm thinking, is there anything those guys can't do? So remember, NordVPN not only allows you to access TV shows and films not available in your country, but also gives you great peace of mind whilst online. And to top it off, one NordVPN account can be used across six devices. To grab our huge discount off your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com. Our link will also give you extra months

on the two-year plan. Plus, there's no risk with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description box. This episode is brought to you by MUBI, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there is always something new to discover. And here's some exciting movie related news. Yes, well on the subject of iconic directors, Perfect Days is in UK cinemas on February 23rd from movie. This is the highly anticipated Return to Fiction feature film making from

Vin Wenders who made Paris Texas and Wings of Desire, which I know you absolutely love. So that is something to look forward to. Also on Mubi, in the UK is the series First Films First. A director's first film can provide the roadmap for an entire oeuvre. Our series of directorial debuts revisits the films that launch the careers of some of cinema's finest auteurs. Including Justin Trayette, who made the film which you absolutely loved, and I did too, Anatomy of a Fall, Age of Panic and of course Reservoir Dogs by an unknown

director who went on to make some other things as well. Never heard of him! You can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash Kermit and Mayo. That's MUBI.com slash Kermit and Mayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. The reason why I included Jermaine Stewart's song. Oh, Jermaine Stewart's. Yes. We'll have to take a close-up.

Is, you would think, I mean, it's like it was done with no thought at all. To have a good time. We could ask somebody all night and drink some, I mean, reisling would have worked or a rose. Mateus. Some cherry. I mean, anything with just would have worked, or... Rosé. Mateus. Some cherry. I mean, anything with just two syllables is going to work. Is there such a thing as cherry wine? I mean, I'm sure the Germans have got...

It sounds like a German thing, doesn't it? But cherry wine. It is a song by Hosea called Cherry Wine. Take me to church. That guy. I don't know, he just says Hosea. Cherry wine. There's a video. I'm not clicking on that. What is a cherry wine? Cherry wine. Ripe cherries are fermented to make cherry wine. Yeah, really?

Okay, that's it. The fruit's bold flavor profile typically produces a sweet tart and the acidic flavor. This type of wine is typically more narrowed and unique in areas with ideal cherry-gurring traditions. Yes. I mean, basically, no one... Crackling Rosie, was that a cherry wine? Yeah, it was a... No, that was a rose. Rose.

The whole thing was about rose, hence the term rose in the title. Although he doesn't say Crackling Rose, he says Crackling Rosie. I know, but it's the same kind of thing. Crackling Rose, you're a store-bought woman. I was thinking, what's a weird thing? And then you go, oh, it's about a bottle of thing. It's not the same thing. Crackling Rose, you're a store-bought woman. You're a store-bought woman. I was thinking, what's a weird thing? And then you go, oh, it's about a bottle of wine, which I bought in a store. You get me for the same reason.

I mean, like it's freight train buzzing. No one listening to this podcast has had cherry wine. That's my contention. If you have had it, then obviously let us know. But why use a type of wine? I was going to say Jermaine, but I was no point because he's not with us anymore. But what is the point of having a reference? Everyone goes, what the hell is that?

I would hazard a guess that if somebody said to you, we don't have to take our clothes off, we could just drink some cherry wine. A lot of people say, no, let's just take our clothes off because that just sounds much less bad than drinking the cherry wine. Well, I'm not quite sure about that. It depends. It depends how you're feeling. Amanda in Eastbourne, a long-term listener, second time hopefully successful this time emailer. Mark, Simon and the production team, I hope you take this email not as a criticism but as a correction. I'm afraid you're both mispronouncing Paul Mezcal's name. It's not Mezcal like the tequila drink where the emphasis is on the last syllable, but Mezcal with a soft ending.

This was recently pointed out to a female interview on the red carpet by Paul Mescal's co-star Andrew Scott, who berated her for saying Paul's name wrong. I would hate for that to happen to you, Simon, during Gladiated 2 interviews. Yes, because he'll be all buffed up. Yes. Hello to Jason with sadness in my heart. Oh yes, and with sadness in my heart, love the show, Steve. Oh, okay. Okay, Amanda, show, Steve. All right, me.

Okay, Amanda, thank you. But so Paul Mescal. Paul Mescal. I had, I did the, um, the critics, I told you this already. I did, I hosted the Critics Circle Awards and Paul Mescal was there and he won an award and he was rocking a dinner jacket with no shirt. We've all done that after a cherry wine or two. He did have to take his clothes off.

You only do the dinner jacket with nothing underneath routine, if indeed you are gladiator. He said to me, he said, I love your tie. And I said, oh, Linda buys all my ties for me. She gets them, you know, she gets them imported. And Linda turned to him and she said, yes, do you like a good owner? You're not even wearing a shirt. Yeah, no, I was point in that.

Box Office top 10 at not charted. And straight in at not charted. Straight in at not charted at all. Someone's daughter, someone's son. Which I think is a really very, very good film about homelessness because it doesn't, I mean, there's people telling their stories really well and it's Lorna Tucker, I think, has managed to get great interviews out of them, but it doesn't just make you think, this is terrible.

It makes you think, this is terrible, but it is solvable. And as I said before, if you just give you Google the title of the film, it will lead you to a bunch of pages in which you can do things to actually approach the problem. Now we got to proper numbers. I should say the box office top 10 is from Commscore Movies. So thank you very much to the nice people at Commscore Movies for these numbers. Number 88, One From The Heart reprise.

I love One From The Heart and I was absolutely thrilled that Boyd Hilton of this parish sent a message saying how lovely to hear you talking about One From The Heart because it's such a great film and he's a big fan as well. So great that he's back in cinemas. Number 14 is The Glambs, the re-release. Yes, so this is The Les Miserables which has been remastered and remoneted and you know, but it's the same film that he was before and we've still got but Russell Crowe.

Russell Crowe. Russell Crowe. Russell Crowe. Russell Crowe. Russell Crowe. It's in cinemas. Cherry Wine. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell.

Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell.

Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. Russell. because so much of the film plays out around the preparation of food. It's all about the preparation of food is a kind of philosophical thing. But that phrase, you can taste every frame. I wish I had written that. Number 10 is All of Us Strangers. I think All of Us Strangers is really terrific. Paul Mescal. Yes.

Particularly good. Andrew Scohar. No, it's pronounced Andrew Scote. Did you know that? Let's do that from now on. I think it's a shame that it hasn't had the awards recognition that it should have had. I really think that it deserves to have had to have because I think it's a terrific movie and I think that it's one of those examples when people will look back in the future and

go, I can't believe it's not butter. I can't believe that the film didn't get more awards than it did. Anyone but you is at number nine. Again, I'm afraid I haven't caught up with it because I was in Berlin, the Berlinale, getting 40 people off one U-Ball onto another one. Bon Bon Bon.

Bon Bon Bon Bon. Pepper's Cinema Party is a number. Don't tell me you've missed out on that at number eight Pepper's Cinema Party. I did read an eye-watering description of it. I wasn't entirely sure that it was a film. It sounded more like something that happened to be happening in the cinema. Number seven here, number 11 in the States, mean, mean, mean, mean girl. Again, as we say, astonishing that a film that was initially designed, well, intended

to go straight to streaming services has done as well as it has, although a colleague of mine was particularly put out by the phrase, it's not your mum's mean girls, to which she replied, yes it is. Number six here, 26 in the States is the iron claw. Callum the Hitman Sires, it says. I haven't been able to stop thinking about the iron claw since Sunday when I saw it. Recently on Questions, Schmeschens, someone asked for good depictions of toxic masculinity in film.

And Fritz von Erich, the patriarch of the family, would be an excellent candidate. His abuse of his son's loyalties, forcing them to live out his failed dreams of glory, left me feeling angry especially given the events that happened in the last act. What I found particularly moving though was the Thon Eric brothers love and respect for one another and very close with my older brother Rory and the first thing I did after I left the theatre was to text him to tell him how much I appreciate and love him. Zac Efron has never been this good. We all know he's an excellent physical performer but he was most impressive in moments of silence,

wearing his conflict in repressed micro expressions. Very good phrase. Thank you, Callum. I mean, the only thing I would say is, I think Efron has been really terrific in a number of films. I think he's great in this. I think it is a really, really good performance, but I have always liked that from. Into the top five from Come Score movies.

Number five is Wonka. Still. Still there and five other states. Eleventh week. So we are going to be in a situation fairly shortly in which Timothee Chalamet is in the top 10 twice because June 2 or June part two. June part two, yeah. Is it called June part two? Is it called June?

Yeah, it's part two. June part two will almost certainly go to number one. And Wonka is not dropping. So I think it's going to be a Timothee Chalamet double bill in the top 10. Denis Villeneuve and overhand Zimmer will be on the show. And the- You've done the interview already.

Yes, I've done the interview. and what there wasn't time to say. Because it's a really nice conversation, I think. The one thing that I wanted to ask, but we kind of run out of time was, is there a tiny part of you, Denis, that is slightly annoyed that Wonka came out before Dune 2? So that when Timothee turns up for the first time, I go, what is it, Wonka? Sorry, with an ice cream and a bar of chocolate. Because did... June 2, so that when Timothee turns up for the first time, we're gonna go, what is it, Wonka? So with an ice cream and a bar of chocolate.

Because did singing and dancing. Had they shot June part two before Wonka? I don't know. But Wonka came out. Obviously, originally June two was gonna be out before Wonka. Yeah, exactly, yeah, so it was, anyway. So that's a really good thing.

So Wonka's at five, Argyle is at four, three in America. Yeah, but so in its third week It's at number four, which means that that absolute welter of Negative emails the first week remember I quite liked it. I thought it was the most fun Matthew Vaughan film since kick-ass and Then the very first week there was nothing but negative emails I don't mean really negative people absolutely hated it But it has found its audience. It is at number four in its third week,

which means it's held on in the top five, good for it. And at number three in the UK, number two in America, Madame Webb, just an email here from Steve Howe, but not the 76-year-old guitarist from Yes. Dear Sony and so far, please, please, please make Mark watch Madame Webb. I want to hear a jolly good rant. Thanks in advance, Steve Howell.

So Madame Webb, fourth film in the Sony Spider-Man universe, following on from the Venom films and Morbius, directed currently in West J Clarkson, making a featured debut. Other writers include the writing pair behind Morbius. Dakota Johnson is Cassie Webb, a paramedic whose mother Constance died while seeking a magical spider in the jungles of Peru. I'm not making this up. Now she's saving lives. One day she has a near-death experience that unlocks hidden powers.

Her hidden powers are, she can see the near future. Oh. Here's a clip. If you had a bad experience on the job, don't let it mess with your head. So she foresaw something, but can she change it? After an incident happens with a bird, it turns out that she can possibly change the future as long as she acts fast enough. Meanwhile, Ezekiel, played by Tahriraheem, is haunted by visions of a group of women who are bringing about his demise.

He knows this is happening in the future, but using high-tech wizardry, he gets pictures of their faces, takes them back to what they would look like now, because he knows what they look like in the future, but he knows what they look like now. They're just teenagers played by Sidney Sweeney who was growing in reality. So, that's what Conor, as Obama said. They are going to become killers who will bring about his demise. So, therefore, he tracks them down using this high-tech stuff at a point where all their paths cross. And you know, so origin story sounds like fun because you know, interesting ideas to people in in there that I like, isn't fun at all. Apparently cost somewhere between $80 and $100 million. That is 10 times as much as Godzilla minus

one cost. And yet this looks like if you showed the two films and said, which one of these cost a hundred million, which one of these cost 10, you'd have it the other way round. Because to say that the visuals are shonky is to understate the level of, wow, is that really up there on the screen that that was considered to be possible

at the point that it left the effects houses. The storytelling is on a par with Morbius. It's absolutely somewhere between pathetic and perfunctory. I mean, largely perfunctory, but just occasionally, you just go off. Absolutely not. There are some comic book movies which have got this kind of thing about they sort of self-referentially refer to themselves and kind of make fun of the source or make jokes about the source of nods and winks and all that kind of stuff. This just seems careless in the

sense that it looks like nobody who made it could care less about what they were doing. And I'm sure that's not true. I'm absolutely certain that the whilst they were making it, the people who were making it wanted to make something good. And I, you know, the email said, what I want is a good rant. I mean, I'm afraid you're not going to get one because it's just disappointing to see something that lands so lamely. I mean, there's one scene in which Cassie's figured out

her heritage, you know, the thing back in Peru. So she goes to Peru, which apparently is the size of a postage stamp because she arrives in Peru and literally standing there is the person that she's looking for. Hello. That's reassuring. I'm in Peru. I mean, more likely to find Paddington Bear. The action sequences are just a bunch of CG visuals, none of, I mean, some, some of which look, I mean, to say they were televisual, I mean, television now looks so fabulous. Many of them just kind of look very computer gamey. The dialogue is terrible. I mean, I'm

not very smart, but I even I felt that my intelligence was being insulted by some of it. And the whole thing is a setup for something which I'm pretty certain we're never going to see. So it's like a setup for something that we didn't need to, you know, we're not going to see the next one. So we didn't need to see it this time. And you, you know, you just end up thinking, okay, well, it's the film which makes the joke. I mean, it's about clairvoyance. And, you know, if only Dakota Johnson had been clairvoyant enough to see how this was going to work out, then perhaps you're going to, you know, gone back in time and not made it. It's not, there's nothing worth ranting about it. It's just very, very poor. I mean, very, very shoddy and messy and foolish and uninteresting.

And the worst thing about it is that you keep wanting it to get good. And you know, Dakota Johnson, you keep wanting it to be good and then it's just not. Number two is migration. Which is kind of fun, you know, but with the scary bits. And number one here, and number one in America, is Bob Marley One Love, Joe from Nottingham. Wanted to write in, tell you about my recent cinema experience, myself, my partner and her father,

both of whom are reggae enthusiasts, booked to see One Love at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham. Okay. It was an absolutely joyful event for a couple of reasons. Firstly, whenever LaShana Lynch slash Rita Mali was making legitimate or truthful arguments to her on-screen husband, a woman sat nearby would express various audible gestures such as, mm-hmm, yep, that's right. Normally I'd consider any form of chatter in the cinema as a crime, but I just found her engagement with the on-screen drama so endearing and charming. Secondly, when the final titles came up on screen at the end, some in the audience couldn't help themselves by applauding the film. When the credits rolled, blaring one love,

everyone sang along, including us. As people got up to leave, there was literal dancing and singing in the aisles. Amongst friends and strangers, it was one of the most joyful and memorable cinema experiences I've had in a long time. Good. I mean, you know, as I said, I thought I couldn't understand why critics were getting off their bike about the film so much when it's perfectly likeable. I mean, it is very, very hagiographic. But hey.

Yes, but hey. Yes. I think, I seem to remember you did think it was disappointing. Well, it's at the soft end of these things because it takes all the rough edges off the story. And, you know, and I think it takes all the contradictions out of the character and it only ever raises the, you know, like there's a whole thing about, yeah, you know,

I did take care of the kids and I did. And then it's like, okay, fine, that's out of the way. But on the other hand, you know, the performances are fun and the music is great. And actually, I think the way in which they've integrated the spoken word and the music works rather well. It's just, it's just, it's just a film that doesn't have any of the real contradictions that it's subject to. And which made it subject more interesting.

Number one here and number one in the States is quite some achievement. Coming up in just a moment, my conversation with Jonathan Glazer. MUSIC Mark, doesn't it seem like everyone is either starting a side hustle or becoming their own boss? Well, now that you've mentioned it, yes, it does seem like that, Simon. And you know what they're hearing a lot? Why, it's the sound of a cash register doing that kaching noise. In other words, it's the sound of another sale on Shopify, the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run and grow your business.

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That's Shopify.co.uk slash... Ker mode. Really? Yes. business to the next level today. That's shopify.co.uk slash Co-Mode. Really? Yes. A is Ben Bailey Smith here, substitute taker, and this episode is brought to you by Better Help. Now, a lot of us spend our lives wishing we had more time. If I had an extra hour slotted into my day, I'd actually get through a question, shmash

questions, you know, it's, I can never quite fit the extra shows in. We all live busy lives these days and everything seems to move at 100 miles an hour. So how do we know what to make room for? Like how do we know what's really important when our lives are happening so quickly? Therapy can help you find what matters to you. And if you know what matters to you,

you can do more of it. Isn't that why we're really here? If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help or try it. It's entirely online and it's designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. With over a thousand therapists in the UK already, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a wide variety of expertise and our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash curmode. That's betterhelp.com slash Kerr mode. Now, our guest today is the screenwriter and director, Jonathan Glazer, whose previous

films include Sexy Beast, Birth and 2013's Under the Skin. He's, of course, the man behind The Zone of Interest, the film exploring the life of Rudolph Hirst, comment down to Varschwitz. You'll hear my interview with Jonathan Glazer after this clip from The Zone of Interest. The suspension. The blue ones. This is the... The Kulrabi. The children are in the Kulrabi. Hello, how are you? I'm good Simon, thank you. It's very nice to have you on our show. Congratulations, BAFTA for best British film, best film not in the English language, which must be a first I think, and also the BAFTA for best sound, you have five Oscar nominations

as well. How was that on Sunday? I'm still trying to process it to be honest. It was unexpected really. I'm obviously delighted that the film's getting the attention that it is and those awards ceremonies obviously helped that no end. Is it difficult to celebrate given the nature and the extraordinary story that you tell in your film? Is it difficult to... there must have been loads of people who won BAFTAs on Sunday who went out and parted. Is it more difficult for you when you've made this film?

It's definitely... I'm trying to be as natural as I can be in those situations, but you're right. It's not a, you know, those parties and award ceremonies and they're great, fun of course, but there's, yeah, we do feel, I suppose, like a fish out of water with regards to this, you know, the subject of the film and so on. But at the same time, you do want to celebrate the fact that it is being seen and it's being talked about and all the people who have worked on it with me for so long. I don't want to be po-faced about the place we find ourselves at all, but yeah, I just, these events are not my natural habitat, so I haven't struggled with them anyway. And it's taken you 10 years to get this film made, as I understand it. Does the story start

with the Martin Amos novel at the same title? Is that where it begins for you? I mean, the story, the Martin Amos novel was a really essential key spark for me, really, first spark. I do tend to need something to hold on to to begin with. And Martin Amos's novel was definitely that on this occasion for me. But then I think the more I then started

to explore the real family who Martin Amos has based his fictional characters on think the more I then started to explore the real family who must have named as his fictional characters on, the more I became sort of fascinated by the kind of grotesque orderliness of them really and, you know, spent a good two or three years immersing myself into the Auschwitz and Birkenau State Museum archives and obviously huge, you know, a lot of wide reading around the subject more generally, but the archives gave us an incredible source of fragments of testimony really that talked about the Haas family. And from those fragments, I was able to start to piece together a sense of story of who they were and how they lived. I came across the diaries of Rudolf Hirst, when I was at university and read extracts of them then and remember being sort of appalled and staggered at the same time

about this man who is the commandant of Auschwitz who clearly cared for his wife, cared very much for his children, cared for wildlife, loved his animals, hated cruelty to animals, and then would get on his horse as we see in your film and ride into Auschwitz and run a killing machine. Just tell us what we need to know about Rudolph Hirst, played in your movie, Christian Friedl, and Hedwig, his wife, played by Sandra Huller. What was interesting, I think, in a lot of the research that we did,

was how, like I said, how ordinary he was, really, how undynamic he was. Primo Levi talked about him as a, I think he said he's made from exactly the same clay as any member of the bourgeoisie in any country in Europe at the time. So, I think what was so extraordinary was how, yeah, was how unexplored he was. And these people obviously don't become mass murderers overnight. You know, him and his wife, Hedwig Hoss, met when they were 17 on a kind of back-to-the-land

program called the Artiman League for young people who were going to go into farming or agriculture. So that was how it seemed their lives were headed. And then of course, he became involved in these kind of murderous ideologies. And so from a point of view of the Christian Friedland, Sandra Huller portraying those characters, Sandra approached it in a very interesting way, Really, in a way, she wasn't giving Henry Cross any of her own imagination or color. She didn't need it at all. In fact, Sandra has talked about it, certainly to me, that in a way, she wasn't hard to play because she wasn't wrestling with anything. Henry Cross was extremely comfortable in her own skin in the sense that she had normalized the life that she and her husband were making for themselves. So it wasn't the question of being in denial,

it was actually that the horror was in how they had normalised, the fact that they were living cheek by jow with a death camp her husband was in charge of, and he would be, you know, murdering 10,000 people every day and coming home and having dinner with his children. And really for Sandra, I think what was so, for me, what was so important about her approach and why I think her performance is so extraordinary in the film is we talked about a Hannah Arendt, of course, and one

of the things Hannah Arendt described about these people is how non-thinking they were. And in order to think, one has to stop first. So from Sandra's point of view, it was like, if I don't stop, I'm never going to have to think. There will be no reflection, no self-reflection, which of course, do we want it to avoid. So Sandra's performance is always occupying herself with menial tasks one after the other. Rudolph Hoss was certainly more opaque as a character and because the film doesn't go over the wall to actually watch him in his sort of death factory, we see him because the camera and the scenario sort of stay, you know, defiantly on the perpetrator's side of the wall.

We only ever see him when he comes home. And he's not talking about his work to his family, but at the same time, it's very clear that what he's doing and who he's doing it to. And so Christian's role was a different role. There was more opacity to his performance, which I think is very fitting. And I think he did brilliantly.

It's one of the reasons that it took so long to get made, Jonathan. The ten years that I mentioned is that you got permission to film in Auschwitz. We are in the house that is just outside the Auschwitz compound. That doesn't happen quickly. Is that the main reason that it took so long? Or was it just the subject matter or trying to persuade Christian and Sandra to take the roles? What was it that the subject matter or trying to persuade Christian and Sandra to take the roles? What was it that took so long?

I think it was a combination of all of the things you cite, really, and other things. I think I wasn't adapting a book, so I had to sort of start again, really, once I understood that I was going to follow the real people. I had to create something, I had to write something out of, like I said, out of those fragments. So the writing period took a long time. And the research, actually, I was probably reading for two or three years and talking to people and watching things and immersing myself in that subject really before I put pen to paper. So there were three years right there.

It's a subject that you can't come to casually for obvious reasons. And then there was COVID, of course, in 2020, and that delayed our production by a year like so many other productions. But we used that year, I think, very well and wisely. And by the time we did get to Poland in the summer of 2021, 2021, Chris Audie, the production design really started to renovate this house and build the garden and everything you see in the film from scratch. But it was all, you know, we had a very clear plan of what we were going to achieve. And then, as you say, Sandra was reluctant to take the role. I understood why, absolutely.

But in the end, thankfully, she did and the film's all the richer for it. It was a long process because it, you know, it's full of rigor, really. A lot of the correspondence to us about your movie, Jonathan, has concentrated around the thermal imaging scenes. Can you just explain why they are so important to you and why they're so important to the story? I was interested in meeting any survivors who were still alive and there were a handful of people

who had survived the war. They were Poles, they were non-Jews. They were in their 90s at this point when I met them. And some of them were members of the AK and the AK was the Polish resistance movement. So it was an underground movement. One person I met in particular, her name was Alexandra Bysadron Kolodzijczyk, forgive my Polish pronunciation. And I met her when she was 90. She was 14 at the time

of the war. She lived two kilometers from Auschwitz. Her grandfather was an important engineer in the coal mine. And as a result of that, the Nazis allowed her and her family to stay put so that her grandfather could continue to work as an engineer in the coal mine, obviously, for them. And as a 14-year-old, she joined the AK as a child. And one of the things she did that she told me about was she left very simply, she just left fruit, she left food wherever she could and whenever she could. And often that would happen at night when the construction sites with the slave labour that was happening there during the day were empty and she would go and do great danger

of course to herself and she would leave as much as food as she was able to. So when I met her and she told me this story, it was something so simple and holy in that, and it was so important for me personally to hear somebody who had, you know, to actually feel the light in someone that there was something other. It wasn't just this pure, awful darkness. And I think I was really struggling with the project at the time, thinking I was desperate for light. I wanted to, I needed to include it somehow. Where would I find it? Where was it? And I found it in her. And so I felt that I could only continue with the project if I was also going to show that. And so what you see in

the film is Alexandra as a 14 year old girl going about her nocturnal kind of cova activities that she did. And I shot it on a thermal camera because it's the thermal camera. So basically what you're looking at there is heat, not light. And it came out of the sort of dogma for the filming of all of it really, which is I only wanted to use natural light. I didn't want to use film lights, but apart from one occasion where we used one film light, everything else in the film was shot with natural light or practical lights. In other words, if it was too dark in the house, then you know, one of the characters would turn on a ceiling light or a desk lamp or something like that. I wanted to keep out all of the kind of artifice of filmmaking. So when I came to shooting a 14-year

old girl in a field in 1943 in the middle of the night, I couldn't suddenly bring in Hollywood light. And so it really simply is, well, what is the tool that I'd need to use in order to see her? And that obviously led us down the road towards thermal imaging. But it was all in harmony with the saying of sort of this 21st century lens of using modern technology, sharp lenses, you know, using everything, trying to make it as present tense as possible as a film and looking at that period through a 21st century eye. I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, the BAFTA for best sound. And one of the reasons why this film will haunt people, I think, for beginning of our conversation, the BAFTA for Best Sound, and one of the reasons

why this film will haunt people, I think, for many years, actually, is the sound design of the movie. What was your brief to Johnny Burns and his team? Because essentially, it's almost like there's two films, which presumably you assembled in the edit. There is the film that we are watching, and then there is another film that we are hearing over the walls in the Auschwitz camp itself. And the experience of the film, I think, is the intersection of those two things. So it was always in the writing. I knew as soon as I had committed to staying over the perpetrator side of the wall, I wasn't going to reenact the atrocities

that were going on in the camps on any level, I wasn't interested in doing that. Just from an ethical point of view, really, I just felt that was fundamentally wrong and is fundamentally wrong to films about this subject. So I was looking for a different way of interpreting it and I realized, obviously, that nonetheless, I would be able to hear everything. And I think we come to this subject

with these images in some ways, sort of already seared into our consciousnesses. You know, we sound as such an interpretive medium. We understand, we get the pictures in our minds, through the sounds that Johnny and I have assembled really. And through that, we understand quite clearly what's happening on the other side of the wall. Johnny and I have been working together for over 20 years.

So we got a well-drilled method. My last film that I did with Johnny was Under the Skin. And then Under the Skin, it was very much about using real world sound. We would go and get film recording, you know, where we needed to. And this film was more of that. And so there were months and months of the kind of gathering, creating a kind of repository of sound, cataloging or shouts and screams and industrial sounds and all sorts. So it was a, you know, trying to anticipate where the kind of sounds we would need might be happening. With astonishing results, Jonathan,

and I just wonder just finally what the cost was for you. You know, I mean, I know you almost walked away a number of times. Do you have other ideas which you work on at the same time just to have some levity? I mean, when you've been immersed in this appalling subject for 10 years, how do you keep hold of your humanity?

Well, I mean, it's, you know, I'm certainly still processing the journey I've been on. It's it's it's no question that it doesn't take its toll. It does and has and it and not only to me, to other people who worked on the film as well. So quite simply, though, it's through friendship, love, family, we support joy, comedy, you find those times together. You can't go through this kind of thing and without the kind of normal sort of rhythms of life happening alongside. I also think Simon that you go into these dark places to make this sort of thing, but really you're not left in the dark place. The point of

going there is to bring it out into the light so that we can see it, so that we can actually walk around it and see what that thing is. I'm not still there. And just finally, I wonder what your father would have made of it, Jonathan, because I know his advice to you originally was, I think he said to let it rot. Just to not go there, and I know he's not with us anymore. But do you allow yourself to wonder

what he'd have made of this? I do, and of course, I think of Alimotron, and I think about his reaction to how the film's been received. And yeah, I know I'm certainly very proud of what we've done. I understand why he said that to me. Of course I did and I would wish that we wouldn't need to make a film like this anymore, you know, but clearly we still need to and really the job of filmmakers is to find a new way of presenting it and a new paradigm really for a new generation. But by no means the final word, clearly it's

hopefully there are other doors off of that room that I've opened, other film makers walks through and continue. But I think it's as important as the museum is that the fact that the museum still exists and how crucial that is to our species, I believe. I think we need to retell this story as rigorously and seriously as we can. Jonathan Glazer, appreciate your time with us. Wish you all the best for the Oscars and congratulations again on the BAFTAs. Thank you for talking to us. Thank you, Simon, appreciate it. ["The Baffled Man"]

Jonathan Glazer talking about his movie, Zone of Interest. We've had lots of correspondence about it. They did well at the BAFTAs. Yes, very well. There is this strange, I mean, as we've said before, awards are nonsense. but they feel particularly nonsensical when you're dealing with these kind of issues. But he has come up with an

astonishing film. So let's hope that the Oscars sort of pick it up and run with it as well. I think what was impressive about that conversation is just how the clarity of his vision. I mean, you know, you were asking him obviously intelligent questions, but he's so clear about what he's doing and why. And when, for example, you were asking about the thermal imaging, that explanation of exactly why you do that, why you can't bring in lights,

why you do it in this way, why that has to be a part of the story. I do think that's, you can see when you see Zone of Interest a real laser-focused clarity. And I think that that's one of the things that makes it an interesting companion piece to Occupied City, which is much more a kind of musing, a general meditation. And when you were talking to the makers of that film a couple of weeks ago,

they were talking much more about just putting stuff in front of the audience and the kind of the repetition of it being the thing that has a sort of trance like state. These films could not formally be more different. And yet they are both, and I said this before, they are both doing this thing about looking at something in a way that makes you see it in a light that perhaps you have. I mean, I'm not saying I'll change your opinion

of these terrible events because these are terrible events and everyone knows that, but in order to revisit them, we have to find new ways of talking about them, new ways of expressing them. And I think in that interview, he did that incredibly eloquently. Yes, so if you haven't seen Zone of Interest, try and get to see it if at all possible. But as with Occupied City, give yourself some time afterwards.

Of course, yes, absolutely. Last week we spoke to Michael Winterbottom. His new film is Shoshana, and that's out this week. Yes, staying with complicated subject matters. So this is the new film from the writer and director Michael Winterbottom, whose extraordinary back catalogue includes Welcome to Sarajevo, 24-hour party people, A Cock and Bull Story, A Mighty Heart, Greed, for which we interviewed Steve Cougar. I mean, the thing about Michael Winterbottom, he will turn his hand to whichever project he is interested in, and whether it's deadly serious or absurdly, fantastically comedic, he appears to do everything with the same level of commitment. So this is based on a true life story of Love and War. The film was originally called,

I learned this from you originally called Promise Land, set between the world wars in what was then known as British-controlled mandatory Palestine. So the bit of history, United Kingdom of France divided what had been Ottoman Syria under the Sykes-Pickup Agreement, and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which Britain had promised its support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, then leads to mandatory Palestine established in 1920.

So this is an area... Can I just ask, sorry, just... Is it mandatory or mandated? It's called mandatory. Mandatory. Thank you. Sorry, I was just... No, is that okay?

Yeah, fine. And I should say, I am no authority in this matter. I mean, your knowledge of history is much better than I am. So this is an area into which Jewish settlers are moving following the declaration of national home state as a principle. Obviously, the friction with the Arab population, the British are supposedly policing the growing hostility, which includes bombings, killings, and of course, increasingly reprisal attacks. Screen discovery, Irina, correct me if I'm pronouncing it correctly, Irina Staschenbaum, I do believe that is correct.

who learned Hebrew for the role. Yes, as Michael Wittbott told us, that's commitment. Yeah, I'd like you to do this role. And you know, one of the, Alicia Vikander learned a language to do a movie. So, hey, anyway, so she is Shashana Barakhov, who is daughter of Bear Barakhov, who was one of the founders of socialist Zionism.

Douglas Booth is Tom Wilkin, assistant superintendent in the British Palestine police, then moves into intelligence. They have a budding relationship, which becomes a flashpoint as the tensions arise between the various warring factions. Are the British police there to police the Arabs and the Jews equally? What are the British allegiances?

What are the British prejudices? Is the relationship between these two central people a source of possible conflict? Is what's playing out in their relationship actually a microcosm of everything else that's going on in the C-clip. Hello. Hello. How was it? Bad. Why? What happened?

They chose Morton to replace Rouse. He knows nothing about Tel Aviv. Why do they choose him over you? I don't know. You know everyone. Maybe that's the problem. They want someone who knows no one, who knows nothing. Are you planning on getting baritone?

Yes. So in a way that scene kind of encapsulates, you know, it starts off with him talking about Morton. That's Jeffrey Morton played by Harry Melling, a man of brutally uncompromising methods who believes that the relationship between those two characters is preventing the man who is meant to be their man in the area from clamping down on the so-called Sterngang paramilitarist Zionists who during the course of the drama vowed to get the Brits out of Palestine. So the story is a mix of history and romance and it's told with a deafness that makes very complicated historical detail understandable.

I mean, I knew some of this, but much of it I didn't. And I did think that it is deftly done in how it explains how these different factions relate to each other. And I think you could go into it knowing almost nothing and follow the political, you know, story playing out. The whole film seems to play out in this kind of liminal space in which all boundaries, geographical, political, ethical, strategic, romantic are all blurred and all allegiances therefore become problematic. And if you had conceived it as a fiction, you'd be accused of overwriting of saying, this is too neat. This is too bad. The fact that most of what the story tells us is actually true, I think gives it a kind of a real sense of bite, that this relationship does become a

microcosm of a much wider conflict. And the way in which those parallels work isn't just, you know, there's that phrase, pathetic fallacy. Yeah, pathetic fallacy is like, yes, I haven't even ever used it. Okay. Well, it doesn't mean pathetic as in, you know, as it derodes pathetic fallacy is, as far as I understand, it's like somebody is, they're having stormy thoughts and tempestuous thoughts, therefore outside it is stormy and tempestuous.

I believe that's pathetic. I'm sure that a literary professor will write in and correct me. But that is kind of playing out here that what's happening between these central characters is mirroring this wider growing conflict. And the weird thing about it is that it doesn't feel contrived. I mean, I understand it doesn't feel contrived because what we're seeing is based in fact, but it's much more to do with the fact that whatever Project Winterbottom does, he does have a way of making things seem, and I do not mean this as a criticism at all, making things seem matter of fact. There's a moment in 24-hour party people when a character

playing Howard Devoto is replaced on screen by the actual Howard Devoto who's playing the janitor who says, I am Howard Devoto and this never happened. But because of the way that Michael Winterbottom does it, it doesn't feel like some terrible fourth wall breaking thing. It's just like, oh, you're beating me. So when you're watching this, you don't find yourself thinking, I'm sorry, which genre is it?

Because it's footing across so many different genres. You think, okay, yeah, fine. I accept this, I buy into all of this, I'm finding it intriguing, I'm finding it interesting. Performance is very fine, particularly the central performance. And the idea that you would learn a whole language in order to perform a role is astonishing. But more importantly, the fact that it is addressing an incredibly complicated historical situation in a manner that is quick enough on its feet that it doesn't get bogged down. And that it was interesting in your interview with Winterbottom, he kept saying,

it's a romance first and foremost. It is a romance first and foremost, but it is a romance in which what's happening in that relationship is being mirrored horribly by what's happening behind it. I liked it. And if you go to it thinking this is going to be like a history of the Middle East, it absolutely is not. Absolutely is not. And also there are very few Arab characters in there because it is specifically a story about a Jewish woman and a British man. And in fact you raised that question with him. You said if people go in expecting this other story, what would they get?

It's not an ugly story. Go see a different film. It's not that film. So that is Shashana. And if you missed last week's program, Michael Winterbottom explains it all in the podcast that came out last week. The laughter lift will be on the way after this. The Laughter Lift The Laughter Lift

Beneath the veneer of the everyday looks the realm of the spy. From Wondery, I'm Indra Vama. This is The Spy Who, the podcast exploring true spy stories you were never meant to hear. We'll reveal the invisible work of the world's intelligence services, unearthing daring missions packed with danger, deceit and double crosses. Follow the Spy Who wherever you listen to podcasts. So just ahead of a little bit of what's on, I know, Mark, that you're the reason that

you're looking particularly down at the mouth is because we haven't had the laughter lift yet. I am, yes. This is going to be... Give me the lift that I need. Okay, play the music. You need to do the joke before he starts laughing, you know that? I don't know about you, Mark. have you had a good week? I have. Mine's been a little bit mixed.

You'll be unsurprised to know. Pop round to relatives' house to visit their new baby for the first time. You've had three children. Would you mind winding him? They said, seemed a bit harsh. So I just gave him a little Chinese burn instead. I didn't really go down very well. Oh, I see, winding.

Punching the stomach. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, but that's but a chai, yeah. Okay. I'm sure you can't say that anymore anyway. Chinese burn. No, that's true. But everyone knows what it is. It's like farting in an elevator that gag was wrong on so many levels.

Some good news though. I'm excited to announce that I released my very own fragrance this morning. Did you? I'm sorry, folks on the Northern line didn't seem to be very impressed. Hey! I haven't even heard these jokes. I did my good deed for this morning. I offered old Doris our next door neighbour 20 quid to give me a ride on her stair lift.

I think she's going to take me up on it. Take me up on it? Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was like a me a stanner joke, but... No, because that would be advertising. They're not sponsoring this. Are they not? Actually, if they did, we might feel,

I'm not sure we want to be sponsored by a stanner chair lift. Anyway, so that was very good. Yeah, no, that was very good. Anyway, can I just throw this in? What? Pathetic fallacy is the attribution of human emotion to inanimate objects. So the sun was smiling down upon him.

The raindrops wept around her. So I was getting it wrong. Okay, well, thank you. I'm just correcting myself in real time. In which case, Professor of English, you can stop writing now because we've already corrected it. We corrected it. Thank you.

And Mark corrected himself in one line. And I know Professor, you were like on six pages. Exactly. I was looking at sending. Anyway, let's find out what's on this is where you send us a little voice note about a cinematic related occurrence which is happening near you. Like this, for example. Hey, Mark and Simon. It's Miriam from Malton Film Club here.

We've got a very special screening happening on Sunday 3rd of March. We'll be hosting the Yorkshire and Northeast Film Archive social cinema program for one day only. We'd love to see you there. Find out more at Malton Film Club on Instagram. TTOF. TTOF. Tata.

T-T-Tongue Goldfruit. Oh, T-T-Tongue Goldfruit. T-T-T-Tongue Goldfruit. There you go. T-T-T-T-T. I was thinking Tata for now. Tata for now. That's GB Young, TTFN. TTFN. Tinkety Tongle Fruit. Anyway, Miriam, thank you.

Inviting us to Morton Film Club's social cinema screening on the 3rd of March. Okay, so send us, if you have something that's cinematically related that you'd like to shout about, send it to Little Voice Note and attach it to an email, send it to correspondentsatcodermail.com. One more thing before we're done. Yeah, well, one big thing.

One big thing before we're done. Wicked Little Letters, which is a new film by Thea Sharick, who has a background in theatre and TV. Reunites, as I said before, Lost Daughter, co-stars Olivia Coleman and Jesse Buckley. Thea Sharick's previous credits include Me Before You and apparently she's currently working on the Frank Cotrell Boyce script. So this is from a script by Johnny Sweet inspired by the real life case of the Little Hampton libels.

Do you know anything about them? No, I'm familiar with Little Hampton. But not the libels. But not the libels of Little Hampton. There's a book about them. Anyway, story of a community in which poisoned pen letters, poisoned pen letters lead to personal intrigue and miscarriages of justice. 1920s, Adilic Town.

Olivia Coleman is the prim, proper and God-fearing Edith Swan, who lives with her father, Edward, played by Tim Spall. Excellent, so we're doing great already. She has been receiving weirdly obscene letters, which she tells the police are almost certainly the work of her neighbor, Rose Gooding, and Brash, single mother mother played by Jesse Buckley. Jesse Buckley's partner died in the war, so

now Rose is raising a daughter whilst also in her spare time, carousing in pubs, breaking the rules of social norms and using sweary language in public so when her neighbour starts receiving sweary letters, clearly it's the next door neighbour. They were friends at one point, now not. This is enough for the police, particularly Constable Papua, played by Hugh Skinner. However, WPC Gladys Moss, played by Andrew Navasson, is skeptical, something which is dismissed by her colleagues who think she should just make the tea. So all the fingers appointed court cases are held and the wrong people are grabbed his eclip. I forgive you, Rose.

Edith, I didn't do it. Who's that? That's me. Sorry. I thought this was more of a private situation. But also, I didn't want to leave in case of problems, so I held position. The father and I have been discussing a sermon I might give at St Catherine's. We're all positively fizzing with the idea. And I had a passage I wanted to read to you too. That's what I meant by good timing.

Twist of fate. No, thank you. No, thank you. It's very short meant by good timing. Twist of fate. No, thank you. No, thank you. It's very short, quite energising. We don't want me any more energised, not unless you want a good banter king. A physical threat. It's like a trapdoor to hell opens up everywhere you tread.

I'm not actually evil, you know. And she's not. She's just a very, very different person to the character played by Olivia Coman. So the film opens with an American Hustle style declaration that this story is more true than you'd think. And after watching, I knew nothing about the thing beforehand. Gugling turns out the more of this is true than you would think. Part of the pleasure is that these poison pen letters are really, really peculiar. Peculiar because they are very sweary, but in a very, very odd way. Now,

I can't repeat any of the dialogue, and that's pretty much one of the few clips. We can't give you a clip in which they're reading out the letters because the letters are fantastically sweary and it is genuinely the case that hearing Olivia Coleman reading out fantastically and really oddly sweary letters is hilariously funny as are you know many of the ways to the thing when they get into court the letters have to be read out because I associate little Hampton with my granny because she used to have in Rustington by sea Rustington by sea right so have I taken furnished lodgings down on Michael Flanters so in my head no one swears in in Rustington or Littlampton. It's just not what is done.

Well, of course, the weird thing about the letters is that they are there's something Chaucerian about them, but they also appear to have been written by somebody for whom swearing is a second language. And this, of course, is a plot point. If somebody who had a, you know, a foul mouth was to sit down and write a sweary letter. This isn't the sweary letter they would write. And of course, although the film is an unfurling mystery, there isn't much mystery. You can tell right from the very beginning what's going on if you don't think about the

Lampton, the libel case. And I think by now, because they've been doing the PR campaign, people do know the story. But the whole point is that the letters appear to have been written by somebody who has come to swearing, but it hasn't really got the hang of it, hasn't really got the measure of it, and that's one of the things that's so funny about this. And I have to tell you, I thought the film was laugh out loud funny. I mean, I really like a good comedy, and it's a really, really terrific cast. But part of it was just because as somebody who enjoys swearing, I think when it's done properly, it can be terrific.

I did the BFI South Bank, the director and the key cast was doing an interview with them. I asked Olivia Coleman if she liked swearing and she gave a fantastically swearing answer which I absolutely can't repeat. I did also ask the director how the rating was. The rating is 15. The director said that she'd actually wanted to go for a 12. This is partly because you will remember when the King's Speech happened,

there was that fuss about the fact that the King's Speech had got a 12 because it uses, and this is exactly what the BBFC said, 12 for strong language in a speech therapy context. And you'll remember that you did an interview with Ken Loach in which he was very put out that one of his films had been slapped, but I think it was an 18 rating because of the language. And the argument was, is it okay if it's posh people swearing? When the case of this... He was all I could do to stop him from illustrating.

I know. I know. And trying to stop Ken Loach doing anything, you're onto a sticky wicket. So in the BBFC description of this, it says there is infrequent very strong language, that word, there is also frequent strong language. And then I can't read you what it says other than, often used in a sexual sense.

Milder bad language includes the B word, the W word, the T word, the other W word, the C word, the other C word, the P word, the T word, the other W word, the C word, the other C word, the P word, the SL word, tart, I can say that, strump it, I can say that, the A word, the other A word, the SH word, the B word, the other B word, the other other B word, the word that begins with P and ends with S, sod, I think we're fine, balls, I think we're fine, tits, God and Jesus, I think we're fine as well. That's an interesting combination that you finished with. Why don't you just assume that every word

that you've ever heard is in. Every word that you've ever heard is in, but all written in these fantastically sort of Baroque style of in the manner of somebody swearing as if their inner soul was having some kind of mad fusion fit. And it was all coming out in these letters. I think that the thing that makes the film

really, really work is the performances. Livia Coleman is great as this sort of pious woman who's actually sort of rather delighted about all this attention that she's getting because she's getting these abusive letters. And then she's, you know, suddenly the Vika wants her to give a sermon and everyone's, oh, you know, she's suffering so marvellously, but she's so Christian, she doesn't want to condemn anyone. And I do find that very funny. I think that Jesse Buckley is a force of nature

on screen and I think her performance is really great. It's a brash counterpoint to Olivia Coleman. Angina Vassan, who was BAFTA nominated for We Are Lady Parts, has got the more difficult role because Sussex is first one police constable. And she's the person who says, this case doesn't add up. Why would she send letters when she could just swear at her over the fence? But she's also the center of this allegiance amongst the women folk, most notably Joanna Scanlon, who has an absolute riot. There's a routine that she does about a chicken and an egg, which is, again, as I said, laugh out loud funny. The one thing I would say is this, some of the reviews have been a little bit equivocal. You need to see the film with an

audience. It really is one of those ones that when the room starts laughing, it becomes, you know, it finds its feet. And I'm sure that if you watched it on your own, feeling sniffy, you know, you could probably take against it. But I thought it was really good fun. I thought I really enjoyed laughing at it with it. And, you know, not least because it's, you know, it's a very entertaining thesis on the poisonous quality of close community life, but thesis on the poisonous quality of close community

life, but also on the weird gloriousness of the English language. I think Stephen Fry would love it. Also, the weird gloriousness of Little Hampton and Rustington on Sea. Rustington on Sea. I'd like to see this. I'd like to see this. I'd like to see this film in the Rustington on Sea Playhouse. I bet you it plays like an absolute gangbusters there.

Yeah. Well, your comments for next week, please correspondance at Kerberomo.com. Take two has landed alongside this particular take. And then some questions with some shmessions will be with you on Wednesday. And that's the end of take one. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production.

This week's team was Lily, Gully, Vicky, Zaki, Matias, whose name has been mispronounced by everybody since we started working with him. Until we finally got it corrected.aki, Matias, whose name has been mispronounced by everybody since we started working with him. Until we finally got it corrected. It's Matias. As everyone's laptop was failing. That's right. Richie and Beth.

Michael was the producer. Simon was the redactor. What is your film of the week? Wicked Little Letters. Take Two has landed adjacent. Is police constable a P word, anisey word? I think it is. Anyway, Take Two has landed adjacent to this and Takeable a P word and a C word? I think it is. Anyway,

take two is landed adjacent to this and take three with you on Wednesday.