UNSPEAKABLE BETRAYAL OR FORGIVABLE SURVIVAL?

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

WITH ``THE GREY ZONE,'' Tim Blake Nelson means to take us both inside the death machinery of Auschwitz and inside the consciences of the Jews who exterminated fellow prisoners in exchange for food, comfort and, at least temporarily, life.

Nelson, who directed the film and adapted the screenplay from his own stage play, succeeds in most respects, although there are times when his concentration camp more resembles a college dorm than a place of unspeakable horror.

The movie takes a little-discussed aspect of the Holocaust - Jewish complicity in stoking the Nazi killing machine - and, without a trace of sentimentality, takes a hard look at what human beings are capable of doing and enduring in the most trying of circumstances. It's not an easy movie to watch - or listen to. Nelson's decision - obviously carried over from the play - to have every character speak in quick, clipped sentences, David Mamet-style, grows repetitive and irritating over the course of an entire movie.

That said, it remains an undeniably moving film to experience, and ultimately that's what makes it worth a recommendation.

The film follows a group of Jewish prisoners working at Auschwitz (such groups existed at most of the Nazi death camps) who expedited the killing process in return for special privileges. These squads readied fellow Jews for death in the gas chambers and then after they were dead, stripped them of their clothes and valuables and loaded them into the great, ghastly crematoriums.

It's an unspeakably horrific day-to-day existence. While these prisoners ate well and lived in relative comfort, they also had to live with two grim realities: the terrible knowledge of what they were doing to the human ``cargo'' and the certainty that they themselves - after no more than four months - would end up in the crematoriums.

Adding tension to this already unbearable situation is a rebellion (which did, in real life, actually occur) being planned by some of the prisoners. But a problem arises when a prisoner finds a 14-year-old girl still alive after going through the gas chamber. The group faces a dilemma: Hide the girl and endanger the uprising or feed her to the growing pile of corpses.

Nelson's re-creations of the crematoriums and gas chambers is starkly impressive, as is his refusal to let his movie slip for one moment into inappropriate sentimentality. His cast - headed by David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Mira Sorvino, Natasha Lyonne and Harvey Keitel (playing a sadistic German commander drowning his conscience in drink) - performs well, although the American accents sometimes take the audience out of the story.

And maybe subconsciously Nelson thought the audience might need a break. But even as the language and the frequency of the late-night bull sessions distract, the movie grimly returns time and time again to its core theme: the strength of the survival instinct. ``What will we do to stay alive?'' one prisoner asks rhetorically. ``The answer is anything.''

THE GREY ZONE - Three stars

(R: strong Holocaust violence, nudity, language)

Starring: David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino, Natasha Lyonne.

Director: Tim Blake Nelson.

Running time: 1 hr. 48 min.

Playing: Laemmle's Town Center 5 in Encino; Pacific's Paseo Stadium 14 in Pasadena; Cecchi Gori Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills.

In a nutshell: Drama about Jews who stoked the Nazi death machine at Auschwitz isn't easy to watch, but is ultimately rewarding.