MOVIE NIGHT — On Sunday, you’ll be able to take a break from a particularly fractious year in American politics with the 96th Academy Awards, which will air on ABC with hosting duties handled by Jimmy Kimmel. The “Barbenheimer” phenomenon has driven a good year for mass entertainment and much of the narrative surrounding this year’s slate of nominees. But for those who are interested in something very different and perhaps more challenging, there are two other films that are up for Best Picture this year that offer distinctive and discomforting approaches to exploring how legal systems work — or not. We are inundated these days with news about high-profile legal proceedings — mostly but not entirely relating to Donald Trump — and with commentary about how they can, will or should unfold. But two nominees this year illuminate aspects of the law that we don’t really talk about. They each provide fresh and innovative ways of approaching difficult questions about our legal systems that, in their own ways, may be relevant to American politics this year. Both films are effectively centered around Sandra Hüller, a German actress who offers two performances that are each remarkable in their own right. (Modest spoilers follow.) In Anatomy of a Fall, Hüller plays Sandra Voyter, a writer in a remote French town whose husband dies after falling from an open window in their house’s attic. Shortly thereafter, prosecutors charge Voyter with homicide, claiming that she killed him after an argument. Her defense is that it was suicide. As the trial unfolds over the course of the movie, evidence slowly mounts on both sides of the ledger — guilty or innocent — and the motives and veracity of key witnesses become increasingly uncertain. It turns out that Voyter’s husband suffered a head injury before he hit the ground. At trial, prosecutors introduce an audio recording of an ugly fight between the couple that exposes deep personal and professional resentments between the two. We eventually hear the sound of violence, but it is unclear what is unfolding: Are we listening to a desperate man on the brink of taking his own life, or an attack by his wife that suggests she later killed him? The couple’s son, who is visually impaired, features prominently. His testimony ultimately proves decisive, but by the end of the film, it is still far from clear whether Voyter is guilty. We do not get the sort of final reveal or flashback that often closes a legal procedural or courtroom drama. A good deal of commentary around the film has understandably focused on some rather counterintuitive features of the French legal system, but there are a couple of other reasons to check this movie out. The film effectively portrays the process of storytelling that happens even in courtrooms — and of how lawyers adapt in the moment to unplanned revelations that force them to change course. Even more importantly, the film poses a difficult but essential question about the limits of the law. We look to the courts — and often to criminal prosecutors — to provide us with closure, but what happens when the legal system doesn’t give us the resolution or the answers that we want? The scenario is more common than we might like to admit — and one that is worth keeping in mind this year. The second film is a far more difficult one — and it is decidedly not for everyone. In The Zone of Interest, Hüller plays Hedwig Höss, whose husband, Rudolf, runs the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust. The film depicts the couple’s daily life with their children in a home that is located on the other side of a wall that separates them from incessant and unspeakable human suffering. Rudolf runs a murder factory whose machinery is largely kept off-camera. Hedwig runs a household using labor from captives that is depicted in exacting and stomach-churning detail. Steven Spielberg, who directed Schindler’s List, called it “the best Holocaust movie I’ve witnessed since my own,” but this one has no heroes. A pivotal scene in the movie depicts a domestic argument between the couple. Hedwig has just learned that the family may have to leave their home as a result of a transfer order for Rudolf, but she finds the prospect unbearable after creating a comfortable life in what, to her, is an idyllic setting for her and her children. (As it happens, a conversation like this may actually have happened in real life.) Hedwig makes the case for staying but also styles her decision as an effort to follow the country’s leaders. “Everything the Führer said about how to live,” she tells Rudolf, “is how we do.” It’s a chilling line that underscores how our legal systems and political leaders can structure and influence our preferences, our aspirations and perhaps even our own sense of morality, or at least how those things can be used to justify unforgivable behavior. The Zone of Interest is formally bracing and offers a unique approach toward examining how it is that anyone could possibly justify participating in the mass slaughter of other human beings, but it may also present a different type of genre. It’s not a political or legal thriller; we know how the history unfolds. It’s a legal tragedy — a story about what happens when the law has lost any moral content, and about what happens when a legal system comprehensively fails to provide anything approximating true justice. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at akhardori@politico.com.
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