There are a myriad of films/series about the holocaust that have been made in Hollywood, but nothing quite like The Zone of Interest. For one, filmmaker Jonathan Glazer chose to highlight the perpetrator instead of the victim.

Though the story is fictional, loosely based on a novel by Martin Amis, the main character Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss was a real Nazi officer. He was the longest-serving commandant of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Glazer shows that Rudolf is a key figure in Hitler’s genocidal plan from the way his subordinates revere him. At first glance, Rudolf and his wife Hedwig seem like an ordinary German family who strive to build a dream life for their family. But what’s extraordinary is that their house, with its large garden, shares a wall with the concentration camp Rudolf oversees.

This film is a singular vision that’s executed brilliantly, minimalistic in style that generates maximum impact. Glazer astutely demonstrates the phrase ‘ the banality of evil’ by Hannah Arendt in her 1961 book Eichmann in Jerusalem. It’s chilling to see that ordinary people who look like our coworkers/neighbors, even friends, could commit atrocities so nonchalantly and without care. There’s a meeting at Rudolf’s home discussing the efficiency of the incineration chamber that’s filmed in such a casual way it’s as if it was just another hum-drum corporate meeting.

Rudolf goes about the Reich business while Hedwig tends to their garden. They play with the kids, host guests, bicker, and argue like a normal couple would. Though we the viewers see/hear the atrocities happening at the camp, screams, gunshots, and smoke coming from the crematorium, it barely registers with the family because it’s just part of their daily routine. The fact that Glazer doesn’t show us the violence within the concentration camp doesn’t make the film any less disturbing, in fact, it makes it all the more so as one’s brain fills in what’s not being shown. At times it feels as if I were watching a horror film, but scarier because the event actually happened.

The sound department, led by sound engineers Johnnie Burn and Tarn Willers plays a key role in creating the chilling atmosphere. Everything is pretty much conveyed through sound, i.e. dogs barking, fired gunshots in the distance, etc., and it’s done so effectively here, paired with astounding cinematography work by Lukasz Zak (who shot the exquisite black/white photography in Cold War) and that eerie music courtesy of Mica Levi. The fact that the film was shot in the Polish town of Oświęcim where Auschwitz is located makes it all the more authentic, and the filmmakers made a replica of the Höss home just outside the real main campgrounds.

One of the most disconcerting scenes is when Rudolf is playing in the river with his kids and you see ash flooding down the water towards them. He knows immediately what that is and rushes to get his kids out of the river, and later we see him trying desperately to scrub the ash off his skin in the bathtub. That scene is so unnerving, but so are the scenes of one of Höss’s children counting his gold teeth collection, and Hedwig gleefully trying on a beautiful mink coat that used to belong to one of the Jewish victims imprisoned next door.

While the parents have become desensitized to the noise from the camp, the kids aren’t so unperturbed by the horror next door. One of their daughters is seen sleepwalking in distress… in her subconscious, she likely feels something horrific is taking place but can’t figure out what or why. Even Hedwig’s mom can’t stay long when she comes to visit.

Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller are excellent as the leads here, whose natural performance is aided by the fact that Glazer sets up nearly a dozen cameras all over the house that the actors might not be aware of. Being so close to where the real brutality took place must be an unusual experience for everyone involved. There is no real plot in this film, but the fact that it shows us the day-to-day life of a family whose head of the household’s profession is human extermination is the point. I read an article where Glazer said that his film ‘offers an interrogation of our own complicity in the atrocity, and makes “grotesquely familiar” the perpetrators of evil.’

There’s barely any break from the bleakness, save for the scenes of a little girl supplying food to the prisoners in the work camp shot with thermal light. The sequence feels dreamlike, fairytale-esque because it is, it’s a rare glimmer of hope & humanity that stands out amidst all of that darkness.

The Zone of Interest isn’t a particularly enjoyable film to watch and that is by design. It’s certainly one of the most provocative and thought-provoking films of the year, a totally visceral experience that’s hard to shake. This film has been nominated for 5 Oscars, including Best International Feature Film, the kudos are well-deserved as this is one of the best films of the year that pushes the boundaries of conventional storytelling designed to shake us from our slumber.

Have you seen The Zone of Interest? What did you think?

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