The Zone of Interest

Jonathan Glazer’s new Oscar-nominated film, The Zone of Interest, has finally hit SB screens, and if you’ve yet to check it out, it’s a definite must-see. But be warned: it’s a difficult watch.

Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, lives – quite literally – next to the largest and most notorious of concentration camps. There, with his wife, kids, and their playful dog, they have created a sort of idyllic domestic life that, aside from the death camp next door, would be envied by anyone. One just need ignore it. But how can one ignore a genocide next-door – how can one become numb to such an unfathomable atrocity?

That’s the crux of Glazer’s new movie, which shockingly subverts all expectations of a Holocaust film. Looked at simply, it’s a movie about the ‘banality of evil’; how evil thrives when ordinary people go along with it, when it becomes unthinkingly systematic. But the film goes far beyond that, acting as a sort of mirror for the audience. How easy is it to drown out atrocities happening around us? In what ways have we come to ignore death and destruction?

All that separates the camp and its prisoners from the Höss family’s immaculate gardens is a wall. Over that wall comes the constant droning of the gas chambers, the cries of the tortured victims, the rumbling of trains carting in more prisoners, sounds of gunshots and screams that punctuate an otherwise indifferent sunny day. It’s relentless, and the sickening feeling seeps into us. And whether they like it or not, it seeps into the characters as well.

The newborn is constantly crying. The daughter, unable to sleep, wanders aimlessly around at night. Something inside her is broken. The mother-in-law stares off, disturbed at the blood red glow of the gas chambers. The youngest son asks a disembodied voice of a prisoner to not disobey his captors again, for subconsciously, his young mind can’t keep processing the sound of such soul curdling violence. There’s no escaping it. Being adjacent to that kind of unthinkable atrocity erodes the psyche, does something irreparable to the body. 

In a bold move, formally and thematically, Glazer forgoes depicting on-screen violence, allowing the incessant sound design to do all the terrible work. And in this way, he creates a tension that never reaches a catharsis, often so crucial in conventional dramatic storytelling. Instead, we are left in a constant state of anxiety, waiting for that moment of release that never comes. We have to sit with it. Live with that feeling. It brings to mind the long-standing debate of whether it’s ever ethical to dramatize something as unimaginably horrific as the Holocaust. Here, we’re left to our imaginations, to fill in the blanks with images we’ve seen in documentaries, history books, and other movies. 

Even the cinematography often feels inhuman, devoid of any personal touch, cutting so precisely on movement that it’s almost as if you were watching a reality show. To achieve this effect, Glazer and his team set up motion sensor cameras to take in the action (or lack of it), allowing the gaze from the camera to feel cold, sterile, unfeeling. Apathetic like the characters depicted before us.

With The Zone of Interest, Glazer has created an incredibly chilling, challenging, and disturbing film, one that seeps under the skin and lingers far after the credits roll. It has been nominated for five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, International Feature, and Sound).  

The Zone of Interest is playing at Metropolitan Paseo Nuevo 4 Cinemas. Don’t miss this chance to witness, quite possibly, the best film of 2023.