June Zero

This year's Deauville American Film Festival once again did not just feature American films, but expanded its scope to include films screened at the Cannes Film Festival and films from several countries, such as director Jake Paltrow's new film (The Good Nght (2007, Young ones (2014), De Palma (2015)) shot in Hebrew. It is curious to see in this festival a film that does not really have its place and especially despite some qualities seems in total mismatch with our favorite festival in France. Certainly over the years, this one has been deserted by many important American distributors like Paramount Pictures, The Walt Disney Company but also Metropolitan filmExport this year, but to want to fill the programming grid with a film that has no relation with the American independent or Hollywood cinema is quite surprising in more than one way.

Yet June Zero proves to be an original film and treated with an undeniable talent from a director who continues to make the cinema he wants and in an independent way. His new film proves to be as exciting as it is humanistic and the script that Jake Paltrow co-wrote with Tom Shoval paints a rather picturesque portrait of events taking place hours before the execution of Adolf Eichmann, known as the architect of the mass extermination of the Jews during World War II.

 Composed of three different stories and points of view, June Zero proves to be exciting and enjoyable to watch. While the treatment of the story could have been quite different if it had been handled by a Hollywood studio, one must recognize a real freedom of tone to deal with a serious fact and especially to show a certain irony to show a moment of life of three people. The story begins with the portrait of David (Noam Ovadia) who, at the age of 13, finds himself working on the creation of the oven to cremate Eichmann's remains and who, years later, tries to have his name appear on Wikipedia for this participation. The next story is that of the Moroccan guard Hayim (Yoav Levi) who finds himself assigned to Eichmann's cell and finds himself overwhelmed by events and struggling to cope with a historical task that is beyond him. Finally, the story focuses on Micha (Tom Hagi), an Auschwitz survivor who is asked to become the chief interrogator at Adolf Eichmann's trial.

It is easy to understand that the last hours of Adolf Eichmann allow the director to bring to light different themes that are close to his heart, whether it is a vision of Jewishness in Israel in the following years, but above all the vision of a country that has difficulty keeping its distance and whose certain practices can really surprise. Each of the three main characters is characterized by a different treatment. We go from comedy to thriller to end with a historical drama. By highlighting throughout the film the long repercussions of the Holocaust, the film imposes itself by a true director's eye that does not seek at any time the sensationalism or the maudlin to build a successful and gripping film.

June Zero, despite the fact that its story takes place in the 60's, is indirectly topical as it was partly shot in Ukraine and Israel. It questions the spectators on their role to play on the history of humanity and shows us that monsters like Adolf Eichmann continue to exist, it is enough to look at the dark drawings of the dictator Vladimir Poutine in Russia to say to oneself that history does not cease to repeat itself and that wars continue to massacre innocent people. The film was also shot in super-16mm to recapture the texture of the 1960s. June Zero is the perfect example of a film that opens up current debates and reveals one of the missions of cinema, that of opening the eyes of spectators and making them interested in the history and the future of the human race on earth.

June Zero
Directed by Jake Paltrow
Produced by Miranda Bailey, Oren Moverman, David Silber
Written by Jake Paltrow, Tom Shoval  
Starring Koby Aderet, Adam Gabay, Tzahi Grad, Tom Hagi, Rotem Keinan, Yoav Levi, Noam Ovadia, Joy Rieger, Ami Smolartchik
Music by Ariel Marx
Cinematography : Yaron Scharf
Edited by Ayelet Gil Efrat 
Running time : 105 minutes

Seen on September 7, 2022 at the Deauville International Center

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