What did sound engineer Asuka Nemoto think of the Academy Award-winning film "Area of Interest"? [CINEMORE ACADEMY Vol.31]

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2024.05.24Nemoto Asuka

In 1945 during World War II, there was a family living happily next to the Auschwitz concentration camp. What did Asuka Nemoto, a sound engineer who has worked on many films, think of the film "Area of Interest" (23), which won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and Best Sound at the 96th Academy Awards? This is Nemoto's unique review of "Area of Interest."

*This article touches on the ending of the story, so we recommend watching the movie before reading it.

As someone who works in film sound, I have always thought that there is a crucial difference between "hearing" and "listening," and that film sound expression is about the audience "listening" passively, and that we, the creators, actively "listen" to the sound. As a professional habit, I have the habit of dividing up the sounds in a space in my head and listening to them individually, so for example, at the coffee shop in Shimokitazawa where I started typing this, wonderful jazz is playing, the sound of a frying pan frying pasta in the kitchen, the slightly noisy extractor fan, and next to me there is a woman looking down and not saying a word, and a man constantly showering her with impersonal words. Those words usually blend in with the noise of everyday life, but now my ears have become completely "listening," and of course I can't make any progress in writing this sentence. If we can put the audience in this state with a movie, then we as filmmakers have won (although in the current situation in which I have to write this sentence, it is a loss).

Just as a camera has an angle of view and a focus, movie sound also has space (reverb) and focus (sounds that are intentionally made to be heard). The tricky thing is that you are usually asked to do this very "casually." It's natural that the dialogue can be heard, and it's natural that the balance between sound effects and music should feel natural. Our job as movie sound engineers is to support the foundation of the work without being too forward.

One day, writer SYO contacted me saying, "I have a film I'd like you to see, Nemoto-san," and I just went to the screening room. "Area of Interest" asked me questions from the screen with its intense sound and cinematic expression, as if it was grabbing me by the collar and forcing me to listen to their words right in front of my face. As I mentioned earlier, there was zero "casualness" which is my usual rule! For about three minutes after the movie started, strange sounds were playing on a pitch black screen, and the overall high-pitched, shrill sound production was very tiring to listen to. Then, I was completely blown away by the dissonant soundtrack that came in at an abnormal level (volume) and the work which abolished all direct depictions and spoke to me through sound. Just as the Jews were "forced" to work at Auschwitz at the time, this work refused to be discussed with my uneducated knowledge, and on the way home, I was "forced" to buy the memoirs of Rudolf Hess, the protagonist of this work. Afterwards, I told SYO that I wanted to watch it again, and prepared for the second screening by reading Hess's notes.

The second time I watched the film after reading Hess's notes, I was in a Inferno"Shimura, behind you! Behind you!" state. I noticed the violence of the film, the historical significance, and especially the subtle "uncomfortable" gimmicks that were spread throughout the sound, which I hadn't noticed the first time I watched it. The sound of this film is designed to suggest the inner world of the protagonist Hess, who spends his days in a state of depression. Hess is portrayed as an ordinary person, no different from us, who struggles at work every day to protect his life and family. He spends his days disciplining himself, saying "it's work," while turning a blind eye to the fact that hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of human lives are disappearing behind the scenes of his work. As if to express Hess's muddy emotions, a low, roaring sound is added to the background sounds of almost all the scenes in and around the house. The only time the low sound disappears is in the river scene, but please watch the film to find out what happened there. I think it expresses the fact that, at first glance, it is a happy family, a beautiful house, and a lovely garden, but for Hess, it was a space with no escape. As proof of this, when Hess's place of work moves away from Auschwitz in the second half of the film, the bass is completely inaudible. "Area of Interest" is clearly a film that is "made to be difficult to watch," with a camera angle that is thoroughly third-person, dialogue that matches this from a distance, unnaturally loud background noise, and dissonant music that suddenly bursts in. However, the frightening thing is that the "difficulty of watching" depends on the viewer's "area of interest."

Encountering a work is very similar to meeting a person. I believe that the true experience of watching a movie is to understand the other person over the course of about two hours, become interested in them, receive new knowledge, and change your behavior or see the scenery differently before and after meeting that person (the work). In that respect, "Area of Interest" should give you a very cinematic theater experience. Like me, there are many people who study, research, and go to the theater because of the shallowness of their own knowledge. "Auschwitz is a place where Jews were massacred in gas chambers." Of course, I do not recommend watching this movie without this basic knowledge, and I think there will be many parts that will be difficult to understand if you watch this movie without any prior information. However, the more you learn from it, the wider our "area of interest" will be, and when you understand what that wall, those clothes, what was floating in that river, and those tools that the children were playing with were, it will sublimate into the experience of watching a movie. I think that is the wish of the filmmakers.

Director Jonathan Glazer said at the recent Academy Awards ceremony, "All of our choices were meant to reflect us today and confront us. We're not asking people to look at what people did back then, but to look at what we do now." Area of Interest is perhaps Glazer's Ludovico therapy for modern people.

*) A type of therapy used by the protagonist Alex in A Clockwork Orange Orange (1971) to suppress human violence by forcibly showing him violent images.

In the second half of the film, the film uses a powerful meta-structural gimmick, asking us who sit in front of the screen a question that only a film can express. It's like how Kinji Fukasaku knocked over the hospital room set in Kamata March (1982), saying "it's all fiction," and in the final sequence of Region of Interest, Jonathan Glazer confronts the audience with "everything is a reality that continues from the past." Please pay attention to the sound production at the moment when the space changes from the past to the present. Usually, in film sound expression, when the space changes, the background sound behind, commonly known as background noise, changes. When Hess turns around and the screen flies into a pitch black space, the background sound behind continues to connect without changing at all. I felt that this was a clear sound Arrival from Glazer that connects the past and the present, the creation and reality.

I'll say it again. The essence of the movie experience is to feel a change within yourself before and after watching the film. I hope that this humble writing will reach you after watching this film and help you to change in some way.

Now that the Jewish Glaser has made this film and its release is moving forward, what is happening in the world? Each and every one of us is being asked to consider our own "areas of interest." After all, we are all "ordinary people," no different from Hess.

Reserve your copy of Areas of Interest now ↓

Text: Asuka Nemoto (sound recordist)

Born in Saitama Prefecture in 1989, he began his career while studying at Tama Art University, and has participated in a wide range of productions, from indie films to commercial blockbusters. Recent major works include "Aishu Cinderella" (21/Director: Watanabe Ryohei), "10 Years Left to Live" (22/Director: Fujii Michihito), "Going to the End" (23/Director: Fujii Michihito), "Chihiro-san" (23/Director: Imaizumi Rikiya), "Undercurrent" (23/Director: Imaizumi Rikiya), and "Parade" (24/Director: Fujii Michihito). "Seishun 18x2: The Road to You" (24/Director: Fujii Michihito) is currently receiving rave reviews. His Netflix original series "The Continuation of Goodbye" is waiting to be released.

"Area of interest"

Currently being screened with rave reviews

Distribution: Happinet Phantom Studio

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