House & garden
Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest begins with a band of solid black held for an interminable time-- Mica Levi's sound collages growling from the big screen-- then cut to a German family picnicking on a lakeside meadow. They pack up, go home, arrive after sunset, fall asleep (mother and father in separate beds). Next morning father is hurriedly dressing but the children play a little game, blindfolding him and leading him to the front courtyard where they surprise him with a new canoe, and of course if you know anything about the film's premise you're waiting-- but even if you don't know anything you can't help but tense up as you wonder: why is the camera so claustrophobically locked in the direction of the house, why are we seeing the canoe only from one side and not the other? Finally father must leave, steps away from the canoe; cut to that long-anticipated reverse shot-- father climbs onto his horse, a guard tower looming over him as his animal walks him leisurely into work.