JUNE ZERO - Mark Reviews Movies

June Zero, Cohen Media Group

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 27, 2024

In June Zero, the lives of several people in Israel become loosely connected by the trial and ultimate punishment of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who played a significant role in planning and implementing the Holocaust. After escaping Allied detention and likely execution for war crimes, Eichmann eventually fled to Argentina, where he lived a comfortable and hidden life for a decade. Captured by Mossad agents in 1960, the unrepentant Nazi, responsible for the forced relocation and murder of millions, was taken to Israel to face justice for his crimes.

That's the backdrop of co-writer/director Jake Paltrow's movie, which follows three characters directly or indirectly playing a role in Eichmann's court case, his detention in an Israeli prison, his execution by hanging, and the decision of what to do with his remains. It's an intriguing tapestry of stories and ideas, mainly to do with justice and memory and legacy, and if the movie is ultimately disappointing and underwhelming, it's not for a lack of ambition.

Indeed, Paltrow and co-screenwriter Tom Shoval might simply be too ambitious with their multi-faceted and multi-perspective tale. It possesses moments of individual potency, as these three characters and those surrounding them debate the particulars of what is being and what's to be done about Eichmann, have to face this monstrous man in his routine as a flesh-and-blood prisoner, and return to one of the scenes of the countless crimes overseen and committed by Eichmann and his ilk.

However, those moments don't quite add up to a narrative with much to say. Paltrow's slice-of-life approach to the material is fascinating, as these characters wrestle with history and participate in it being written in front of them, but for the many questions and unsettling contradictions the situation raises, the filmmakers don't seem comfortable or confident enough to explore them in any depth, let alone approach them with any sort of answers or core ideas in mind.

The story begins with David (Noam Ovadia), a 13-year-old boy whose family emigrated from Libya to Israel. David's a troublemaker, shoplifting and not paying attention in class, so his father (played by Jacob Zada Daniel) gets him a job at a factory that manufactures industrial ovens, in order to keep the boy occupied and from causing too many more problems. Before the kid even gets the job, though, he steals a pocket watch from the office of his soon-to-be boss Shlomi Zebco (Tzahi Grad), making his first goal after being hired to return the souvenir of Shlomi's past as a post-war insurrectionist against the British in then-Palestine.

The boy's life, disinterested in Eichmann's trial and feeling like an outsider despite his family's Jewish faith, gets at the movie's notion of lives being lived with day-to-day concerns and routines, even as the country starts to grapple with the Nazi war criminal's conviction. He's sentenced to death, which would mark the first instance of capital punishment in Israel, and as some debate whether or not this is the right thing to do, the government comes to Shlomi with a request: to build a cremation oven for Eichmann's corpse.

From there, multiple ideas emerge about the politics of this planned funeral, the potential religious concerns of cremation, and, not least of all, the fact that the blueprints for the oven came from one design used in the Nazi extermination camps. Just as all of this—as well as David's thorny relationship with his boss—comes to light, the movie halts in order to move on to a different central character.

There are multiple starts and stops in this narrative, which certainly expands its scope toward other matters, but the cost, ultimately, is that none of the ideas presented in each of these vignettes is allowed time or room to breathe and expand. Take the next section, for example, which revolves around Haim (Yoav Levy), an officer at the prison where Eichmann is being held as he awaits his court appeal. Haim is personally responsible for the Nazi's security, ensuring that the convicted mass murderer is kept safe and made comfortable (Eichmann is either kept in shadow or otherwise obscured, such as during his introduction—when he's sitting on the toilet behind a curtain).

The disparities here are fascinating—that a man who deserves no such treatment is still provided it and that this one guard must aside his personal feelings to give that treatment to the prisoner. Before Paltrow and Shoval can dig into these contradictions, though, the story moves on to Warsaw, where Micha (Tom Hagy), the chief interrogator for the prosecution against Eichmann, tells a story of living in the Nazi-established ghetto to a tour group. The way Paltrow's camera follows that narrative along the present-day ruins is haunting, and shooting on 16 mm film, cinematographer Yaron Scharf gives the entire movie the feeling of something from a previous time.

This leads to another debate between Micha and Ada (Joy Rieger), part of a commission organizing the tour, about what memorializing the Holocaust should mean but how such intentions could be twisted. Before that can be examined, June Zero is moving again, returning to the boy, the prison, and an unceremonious end to a life that facilitated so much pain, trauma, and death. Obviously, the movie has a lot to say about various topics, but its unfocused structure keeps those discussions and debates at an unfortunate distance.

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