Jonathan Glazer has directed only a handful of films in 20 years, but each one has been unique, until the consecration this Saturday with the Grand Prix of the Cannes Film Festival. for “The Zone of Interest”.
A decade after his last film, “Under the Skin”, a strange film with Scarlett Johansson as an alien, the enigmatic filmmaker landed in Cannes with a chilling look at the Holocaust, which chronicles the banal family life of the commander who ran the camp of extermination of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss.
Born in London 58 years ago, Glazer got his start in the theater before moving into commercials and music videos.
In the 1990s, he advertised for brands such as Guinness, Stella Artois and Levi’s and various music videos for Radiohead, as well as artist Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity,” which won MTV Video of the Year in 1997.
Glazer caused a sensation with his first film, “Sexy Beast” (2000) starring Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley.
With this film, he turned the tired British gangster genre upside down, with scorching images, just like in his videos, and a crazy character, Don Logan, played by Kingsley.
Changing the genre radically, Glazer approached with “Reincarnation” (2004) a mysterious story set in New York.
A widow (Nicole Kidman) meets a 10-year-old boy who claims to be her dead husband reincarnated.
The film confused and shocked critics at the time and was booed at its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it was disturbed by the sexual undertones of the central relationship.
However, his reputation has grown over the years, earning comparisons to legendary director Stanley Kubrick.
“Under the Skin”, made in 2013, is a science fiction film set in a remote Scottish seaside town.
Scarlett Johansson is an alien in human form who roams the beaches and streets, picking up men at random and luring them to an abandoned house.
Mixing highly stylized abstract scenes with the gritty realism of Glasgow, Glazer’s film is both unnerving and fascinating, but this time it won over critics and the film topped multiple best of the year lists.
Despite that success, he spent a decade making just a couple of shorts before heading off to shoot “The Zone of Interest.”
“I meditate a lot. I reflect a lot on what I’m going to do, either good or bad. There’s a lot of noise out there, I’m not interested in contributing to that,” he explains.
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