ZONE OF INTEREST

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Storyline (warning: spoilers)

Jonathan Glazer’s shattering The Zone of Interest, is a drama that takes place during World War II but feels incredibly urgent in what it’s saying about existing alongside evil and how if we allow everyday life to drown out those who are suffering, we are bound to repeat the horrors of history. It's a challenging drama that creeps into your soul.
Glazer opens his film with a long shot of a black screen with an increasingly loud soundscape that acts as an overture. It sounds mechanical, incorporating elements of a score by Mica Levi and the noises that will dominate the film to follow. It seems like a way to take viewers from the ordinary world into this film. Put down your phone. Pay attention. Listen. What you hear in this film will be as important as what you see.
Loosely based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest is set almost entirely on the property of Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller, having an amazing year with this and Anatomy of a Fall). Hoss is the commandant of Auschwitz, which exists on the other side of the wall that separates his property from the concentration camp. Rudolf and Hedwig go about the routine of raising a family as thousands are murdered on the other side of the wall. As the children play and Hedwig gardens, the sounds of trains, gunshots, screams, and furnaces play ceaselessly in the background.
We have seen so many films that portray Nazis and historically evil people as caricatures. Glazer is careful not to humanize or defend these people, but he captures the ordinariness of daily life. Of course, Nazis went home from the camps and raised families right outside the horror of it all. Shot with a painterly composition that's never exaggerated by the great cinematographer Łukasz Żal (Cold War), The Zone of Interest is mesmerizing despite its lack of melodrama or traditional narrative. Glazer challenges our perception of one of the most horrifying chapters of world history by revealing the mundanity of it all for those who committed atrocities.