June Zero

Not Rated • Video on Demand

In 1960, Israeli agents secretly entered Argentina where they captured Adolf Eichmann, the principal architect of the Holocaust. June Zero (“inspired by true events”) picks up two years later. Eichmann has been tried and convicted, and the Israeli people are gathering around radios to await news of his sentencing. The film shows that the prosecution of justice in a broken world can generate its own ethical quagmires.

Director Jake Paltrow tells the story through three fictitious characters. David (Noam Ovadia) is a schoolboy who works at an oven-­manufacturing facility. He knows little of the events gripping the nation until he overhears a conversation between his boss and a government official about repurposing an oven.

Haim (Yoav Levi) commands the base where Eichmann (whose face is never fully shown) is being held. Safeguarding his prisoner until execution frazzles and exhausts him.

Micha (Tom Hagi) is a concentration camp survivor who’s considering an offer to lead tours at a former Jewish ghetto in Poland that would require him to tell his own terrifying story over and over again.

Paltrow manages to convey normalcy amid great tension, and the Super 16 mm film videography gives the production a grainy realism. The movie contains a few expletives and a censored picture of a naked torso.

Five different languages regularly spoken in June Zero attest to the widespread impact of Eichmann’s crimes. And though each character has his own shortcomings (for example, David is a petty thief), each plays a necessary role in the complexities of executing Eichmann—and disposing of his body.

Ironically, Eichmann’s corpse winds up in an oven, just like those of the Jews he helped murder. But those who watch the fire take his body do not do so with the satisfaction of justice done, but with sorrowful memories of those they loved and lost.