The Commandant's Shadow
{{Short description|2024 film by Daniela Volker}}
{{Infobox film
| name = The Commandant's Shadow
| image = The Commandants Shadow.jpg
| caption = Theatrical release poster
| native_name =
| director = Daniela Völker
| writer =
| screenplay =
| story =
| based_on =
| producer = {{plainlist|
- Daniela Völker
- Gloria Abramoff
}}
| starring = {{plainlist|
- Jurgen Höss
- Anita Lasker-Wallfisch
}}
| narrator =
| cinematography =
| editing =
| music =
| production_companies = {{plainlist|
- Snowstorm Productions
- Creators Inc.
}}
| distributor = {{plainlist|
}}
| released = {{Film date|2024|05|29|United States|ref1=}}
| runtime = 103 minutes
| country = {{plainlist|
- United Kingdom
- United States
}}
| language = English
| budget =
| gross =
}}
The Commandant's Shadow is a 2024 documentary film directed and produced by Daniela Völker. The film focuses on the story of Jurgen Höss, the son of Auschwitz concentration camp director Rudolf Höss, and his boyhood home life in the villa adjacent to it. The film also stars Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, an Auschwitz survivor who meets face-to-face with Jurgen Höss decades later. The Commandant's Shadow drew media comparisons to the 2023 film The Zone of Interest, a dramatization similarly focusing on the Höss family's life adjacent to Auschwitz.{{cite news |last1=Schager |first1=Nick |title=The Traumatic True Story Behind ‘The Zone of Interest’ |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-commandants-shadow-review-the-true-story-behind-zone-of-interest |access-date=May 29, 2024 |work=The Daily Beast |date=May 29, 2024}}
Snowstorm, Creators Inc., and New Mandate Films produced the movie.{{cite news |last1=Billington |first1=Alex |title=Holocaust Doc 'The Commandant's Shadow' Trailer About Rudolf Höss |url=https://www.firstshowing.net/2024/holocaust-doc-the-commandants-shadow-trailer-about-rudolf-hoss/ |access-date=May 29, 2024 |work=First Showing |date=May 6, 2024}} HBO Documentary Films and Warner Bros. Pictures acquired distribution rights in April 2024 with Fathom Events partnering to give the film a limited release in the United States on May 29 and 30, 2024.{{cite news |author1=Staff |title=Warner Bros. Pictures And HBO Acquire Doc ‘The Commandant’s Shadow’; Fathom Events To Partner With Warner Bros. For Theatrical Screenings |url=https://deadline.com/2024/04/warner-bros-pictures-and-hbo-acquire-doc-the-commandants-shadow-1235896247/ |access-date=May 29, 2024 |work=Deadline Hollywood |publisher=Penske Media Corporation |date=April 26, 2024}}
Reception
{{Rotten Tomatoes prose|92|7.5|24|consensus=|ref=yes|access-date=December 5, 2024}} The film earned a score of 76 on critical aggregator website Metacritic based on five critics' reviews, indicating "generally favorable" response.{{cite web |url=https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-commandants-shadow/critic-reviews/ |title=The Commandant's Shadow critics' reviews |access-date=December 5, 2024 |website=Metacritic |publisher=Fandom, Inc. }}
Nick Schager of The Daily Beast called the film "an overpowering work of excavation and confrontation—as well as a timely and urgent warning about the continuing threat of antisemitism." Leslie Combemale of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists wrote that "this documentary has such a powerful hold, it's hard to shake even days later."{{cite news |last1=Combemale |first1=Leslie |title=The Commandant's Shadow – Review by Leslie Combemale |url=https://awfj.org/blog/2024/05/20/the-commandants-shadow-review-by-leslie-combemale/ |access-date=May 30, 2024 |work=AWFJ.com |date=May 20, 2024}}
See also
- 2 or 3 Things I Know About Him, 2005 German documentary by Malte Ludin about his family's view of his father, wartime German ambassador to Slovakia executed for war crimes there in 1947
- Hitler's Children, 2011 Israeli documentary about second and third generations in the families of prominent Nazis, including Höss.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb title|32020404|The Commandant's Shadow}}
- {{Rotten Tomatoes|the_commandants_shadow|The Commandant's Shadow}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Commandant's Shadow, The}}