A few things to take from this: 1.) The ability from a Jewish - presuming, given his name - director to portray the family of a concentration camp commandant at the centre of the film in the way he does.
95 percent of the film is without casting any negatives upon the family. This is indeed, an astonishingly smooth and real experience for the viewer also:- to watch the family interact and do normal things in a mostly positive manner - truly remarkable watching this: a normal, happy, doing-all-the-things-families-do scenario for the majority of the film.
2.) The over-loud sounds of nature when the family are outdoors and consistent but muffled sounds of orders being shouted and shots being fired -presumably executions in the camp alongside the commandants house. At's is if he wants you to focus on the beautiful, not the grim.
3.) When the negatives do come, they are not a shocking change to the hum-drum sweetness of summer; rather a necessary pointer to the fact that it is WW2 Poland with the Nazi's in control with their üntermenschen mentality and business-like straight-forward problem solving. They've all been brainwashed so well since Hitler came to power that it all just seems like a corporate board meeting to discuss something important, but not moral.
The ending is quite weak, and the odd blank screens and strange noises do little for me or the average viewer frankly.
All in all, a possible "how it actually all was" is possible in your brain afterwards, as if the epoch was through rose-tinted glasses to a degree.
There are rough edges toward the end of the film, but the key thing I take away is the simple acceptance by the family that the Jews are there for them. No questions asked and no need for understanding of anything beyond that is the feeling I get from them. The mother is, like most women:- ambitious behind her husband's success, and she is ultimately the one who seems like she would happily shoot anyone for what she wants. Still, her ambition is done in a very homely, if clearly an over-ambitious homely way.