Whence a Fur Coat

An Ichabod-Crane-of-a-man is pushing a wooden wheelbarrow up-and-down over spaced-out stepping stones through a flower garden that backs up to a high concrete wall topped with barbed wire. This is the scene 11 minutes into a movie. The film devotes 43 seconds to the wheelbarrow’s journey till the lanky man sets it down next to a house. We have those speechless seconds to ask questions — not because the screenplay has holes or the acting is poor, but because that’s what this film, like life, invites us to do:

Who is this man? Why do his clothes not fit? Why is there a red stripe down the back of his coat? Why doesn’t he just push the wheelbarrow on the flat grass instead the uneven path? What’s in his barrow? Why is his cart wooden and new — when later we see another workman with a metal one? Where is he coming from? Why not edit this scene down to like 4.3 seconds?

Arriving at his destination, he raps five times on the home’s glass backdoor. A maid promptly appears with hands free and ready. A 20-second choreography transpires between Lanky Man and Maid without words. He loads her arms up with three sacks and three cans which require her chin to steady them. And then she proceeds inside.

How did she know who was going to rap on the door at this time of day? How did she know to come empty handed? How did he know she could manage that much stuff? How did she know that was all he had for her, when there were clearly other items in the barrow?

But he knows. She knows. They’ve danced these steps before.

As she walks down a hallway, she utters the first dialogue to be heard in the foreground in over 1½ minutes. It’s one word. She announces, to someone in another room, Lanky Man’s name:

Bronek.

That identifies him as a Pole. Since he’s not wearing a Star of David, he’s likely a Catholic.

She then proceeds to the pantry. We’re given 12 seconds inside the pantry whose shelves are already well-stocked with jars and tins. How does she know what’s in each type of tin without bothering to glance at the labels? How does she intuit which shelf is home for each? Where did all this food come from?

The maid’s Bronek turns out to have been a cue for the lady of the house to come meet him at the backdoor where he gives her a large sack that she immediately glances inside of, and then he hands her a second smaller bag, and then he disappears from the frame: Are these more foodstuffs? Will she proceed to the pantry too? Maybe she’ll delegate these items to another maid?

She calls out for Marta, another maid. While Marta flies down the stairs, the matron has all the moment she needs to triage the smaller bag. She simply tells Marta to take the large sack

upstairs

and to come back down. While dutiful Marta flies back upstairs, the matron goes to the dining room table to spill the smaller bag’s contents: a mishmash of women’s undergarments. Matron’s four maids (of different heights and builds) gather round and she tells them to each pick out one piece.

How could Matron triage everything so quickly? Is there another pantry upstairs? Why random slips and stockings rather than specific items for each maid?

While her staff hover round the dining table to hold up and examine each silky item, Matron exits. She goes upstairs into her bedroom and shuts the door. She pulls a beautiful long brown fur coat out of the sack on her bed — so upstairs was an understood code for “Place this sack on my bed where I will deal with it's contents later.”

Matron spends 43 seconds inspecting the fur, trying it on, and admiring herself in her mirrors. Her right hand finds something in the right pocket. With both hands she turns the small item around to inspect it. She sets it down on her dressing table. It appears to be an ornately designed metal tube of lipstick.

Why would an expensive fur be delivered in a sack in a wheelbarrow with foodstuffs by Bronek? Why would lipstick or anything else be in the pockets? Whose lipstick is this?

She hands the fur to one of the maids on the stairs:

It needs to be cleaned and repaired, and the lining’s come away in the bottom left corner. Be very careful with it.

To which the maid simply submits:

Jawohl.

Matron returns to her dressing table. She opens the tube. Sniffs the lipstick. Dabs some on the back of her left hand as a palette; uses her finger to apply the color. Liking what the mirror shows her, she applies the stick directly on her lips — evidently not worried that the owner carried any germs. Closes up the tube and puts it in a drawer. But then she uses cold cream to remove all evidence of the new color on her lips and hand.

The fur and its lipstick, the silky undergarments, the foodstuffs — all originated from the place where Bronek started his journey: from a mysterious portal, out of frame, connecting the otherside of the wall to this side. These goods are special. They have been curated for the people of this manse, but not by a grocer or clothier or beautician.

The wooden wheelbarrow is purposed for transporting these precious things. Made to lessen racket on its presumably daily trip. Made to not dent tins of food. Made to not crack the occasional glass jar. Made so as to carry all that it may be called upon to transport. But, not made for the height of its porter. Things are important, not the people necessary to attain them.

From Bronek-starting-his-trek to Matron-wiping-off-lipstick, The Zone of Interest gives us nearly six minutes to play the role of a Wegschauer, a bystander. We are afforded the opportunity to see certain things and to know certain things, and thereby examine whether we would do any better than a past generation of sons & daughters of Adam & Eve. The one thing The Zone of Interest cannot do in this scene or its entire 105-minute runtime — the limitation of any media — is to replicate the slow boil of a society being groomed to become mere bystanders.

When motivations of self-preservation and self-improvement and self-righteousness are sufficiently stoked, one naturally chooses the path of least resistance, with justifications rolling through the mind as to why one needn’t bother connecting any dots, let alone standing up to intervene.^[1]

Streaming options for The Zone of Interest may be accessed on this webpage: www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-zone-of-interest