An idyllic family life juxtaposed with the genocidal holocaust horrors next door has made for one of the most gripping and intellectual cinematic gems in years. The Zone of Interest is by far the most haunting and arresting depiction of Nazi family life and Holocaust bureaucracy you’ll get all year. Directed by Jonathan Glazer, his latest work demonstrates detailed precision and courage in its artistic expression. This best picture nominee paints an unsettling new canvas on one of history’s most heinous events.
Based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest features a German family high up in Nazi command living their grand life next to Auschwitz. The film surrounds real life German SS officer Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel). He loves his family. He hates animal cruelty. He’s also the commandant of the largest Nazi concentration camp responsible for the genocide of an estimated 1.1 million people. Yet his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), doesn’t seem to care about any of that, and just wants at once a stable home for her family and to protect it at any cost.
Omission demonstrates itself to be a powerful tool. The Zone of Interest says more with what it doesn’t show than what it does. You don’t ever actually head inside the concentration camps and witness the brutality and inhumanity Auschwitz is known for. But you do hear it in the neighbourhood. Hellish soundscapes of human lives screaming, running, being shot, burning, as well as many other gruesome methods of mistreatment can be heard in the background of the family’s casual and seemingly trivial day-to-day lives. The detail made in the ambient sound design lets your imagination breed horror far beyond the limited boundaries of what our human eyes can see. Never have I felt such a distinguished difference between the movie I saw and the movie I heard.
There is almost a documentary-like manner in how it captures a community too. It’s the indifferent casual small talk of a mother joking if a Jewish lady she used to work for is “in there“, or the business talk of officers discussing faster ways to exterminate people in a chamber; The film casts a horrifying study of its human community.
Privileged Nazi family life, as well as Höss’ day-to-day job, is told with cold, calculated cinematography. Frames are still and precise, with a painting-like sense of mise en place. Almost Kubrick-like, the observational storytelling makes you uneasy, like you’re bearing witness to something that you shouldn’t be. This rings especially true for the thermal imaging sequences revolving around a certain character doing something peculiar. It’s really something you have to see for yourself, but the night vision effect, coupled with the thermal glows on the human body, makes for some uncanny symbolism that exemplifies many things the film wants to say.
And there is certainly a lot that The Zone of Interest wants to say. Whether it’s the political allegory of the current world we live in, or the many brutal questions it asks about humanity, this is a philosopher’s treat to pick apart. Many have related this film with the “banality of evil” theme first coined by political theorist Hannah Arendt. Yet, many others would argue this film goes beyond such and is more about the sheer maddening horror of indifference and moral apathy that humans can possess in respective right or wrong circumstances.
It goes without saying that the performances are top notch. Friedel, playing the real life Nazi commandant, exercises a persona that feels so natural and casual, which juxtaposes his position as a man with such incredibly heinous power and authority. Hüller, as his wife, almost steals the movie as she demonstrates the sheer emotional weight her character carries in being the megalomaniac housewife insecure of being in her husband’s shadow.
The film’s arthouse pacing may not be to everyone’s taste. It treads on the brink of buckling under the weight of its own artistic, meditative ambition. Though this is far from just another holocaust movie, some of its shock tactics and thematics can feel somewhat repetitive and one-note. This is compounded when you put them against other more profound scenes of class divide and disturbing pragmatism which really shows how many other complex emotions this film wants to convey. With the comparative dissonance that broods throughout scenes between so many altering character dynamics, this film may benefit from a longer running time, allowing a further exploration of the shades of grey against its bizarre holocaust backdrop.
Rarely do we come across a film so enthralling yet disconcerting where gunshots and screams can seamlessly mesh into the sweet and gentle ambience of birds chirping in the distance. The Zone of Interest crafts an eerie cautionary tale on our ability as humans to do morally questionable things for seemingly ordinary goals. There is a sense of cinematic panache that only Glazer can command. What he has accomplished with The Zone of Interest makes for a cruel, yet profound questioning of humanity’s dark underbelly that is sure to be discussed for years to come.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Zone of Interest is now screening in Australian theatres.
