Pan and Slam

The Zone of Interest

PG-13 1h 45m

• Director
  • Jonathan Glazer
• Writers
  • Martin Amis
  • Jonathan Glazer
• Stars
  • Sandra Hüller
  • Christian Friedel
  • Freya Kreutzkam

by Jason Koenigsberg

Apathy can be a villainous demon. Throughout history evil has triumphed because of apathetic people willing to look the other way when something terrible is happening that does not directly affect them. Jonathan Glazer’s newest film The Zone of Interest is not about apathy as one might think. It is instead an intimate look at monsters capable of inhumane cruelty and responsible for the most despicable acts of the twentieth century. But these monsters are shown living mundane lives. The movie opens up with plain title cards and after the title of the movie is shown the director holds on a black screen while music plays, inaudible whispering sounds are heard and then eventually after a few minutes the audience hears birds chirping. After that the first shot of the movie is revealed and it is a beautiful one. A family is sitting in the foreground on lush green grass and in the background there is a lake and mountains with bright green trees on the other side of the lake and people are swimming in this picturesque landscape. This man in Auschwitz commandant Rudolph Hoss and his wife Hedwig. The Zone of Interest is about this husband and wife as they strive to build a dream life for their family in a house directly next to the death camp.

That is the plot but The Zone of Interest is not about the story as much as it is about the atmosphere. The gorgeous, vibrant cinematography of nature shows their idyllic life as a family living next to Auschwitz. This seemingly normal family is fully aware of the death that takes place on the other side of the wall that borders their ideal house and garden and are just fine. The movie does not show inside the camp because it does not have to. It works better leaving the violence and death out of sight the same as it is for the family the audience is following. Everyone who is going to watch The Zone of Interest is aware of what happened and it is even more effective and harrowing not seeing the horrors of the camp up close like in so many other movies that have already tackled that topic. Instead credit needs to be given to the sound design on this film. Throughout the whole movie they make great use of hearing a train pulling into the station as its smokestack moves in the background, the train whistle, men shouting commands, children crying, and gunshots being fired. The wider shots that show the Hoss family enjoying their backyard while black smoke rises out of chimneys is just as powerful as the sound design. This movie is a masterclass on subtle visual and audio filmmaking.

The way director Jonathan Glazer sets up his shots adds a level of voyeurism to this family living their lives next to unspeakable acts. There are no closeups of the family. All of the shots place the camera at a standard length, about ten feet or so away from the main characters. Enough so that the viewer can see the whole room, or the backyard and garden leaving just enough space on the screen for the barbed wire on top of the fence that is the boundary of the camp. The only time the viewer can make out a characters face is if they walk close to where the camera is positioned. This is Jonathan Glazer’s fourth feature film in the past quarter century so he certainly takes his time making movies in between directing music videos for artists like Radiohead, Blur, and Jamiroquai. He has earned praise and comparisons to the great Stanley Kubrick and not just because he takes a long time between movies but his use of color, using the full frame to tell a story, and use of sound effects and music are all very Kubrickian. The Zone of Interest is probably his most similar to Kubrick in terms of its look. The haunting image of smoke and fire coming out of a chimney in the background as the pretty house and garden sit in the foreground seems like something Kubrick would have shot. The Zone of Interest is directed by a British man with German actors and a mostly European crew. It is in German with subtitles to add authenticity but honestly, the dialogue is superfluous. This movie works because of its strong imagery and great use of sound. The subtitles could be off and The Zone of Interest might have the same effect on non-German speaking viewers.

Early on the audience realizes these characters are monsters even though we see them do fairly innocuous, boring, everyday actions that all families do. They have marital problems like all couples do, the husband needs to travel for work and his wife does not want to leave their home. They go fishing and swimming with their children. They celebrate birthdays, they garden, they are just like anyone else except they live directly next to a death camp. A death camp that slaughters innocent families just like them only the victims they slaughter are Jewish. The final shot is an incredibly powerful one as we watch a character descending stairs and it keeps getting darker and darker the further down he goes. At one point he retches and almost vomits. The film is telling us that these characters are evil and maybe got sick at their actions but only for a moment. Then they swallowed their sickness and chose to continue down the stairs into the darkness ignoring what little compassion and humanity they had left.

The Zone of Interest provides a fresh perspective on the Holocaust, a subject that has been told numerous times on film and leaves out all of the typical scenes of families being torn apart, pushed onto trains, and beaten or raped. Watch Schindler’s List (1993) to see that or any of the other Holocaust movies that have shown the lack of conscience mankind can have when they dehumanize a group of people. The Zone of Interest also works as a metaphor of class structure today. It is an indictment of the rich and how they can lose track of people that are different and less fortunate than they are. People that can be clumped into being categorized as “the other” or less human and less civilized. These people are very wealthy and make money off the backs of a lower class based on their race/religion. Humanity can be easily corrupted in certain circumstances. The Hoss family has Jewish servants doing work in their house and garden. They never make eye contact with them and treat the help as if they do not exist. These Jews are lower than the family dog that follows them around the house. The Zone of Interest is a haunting movie and probably the kind that needs to be seen more than once. A movie that will stick with the viewer and the star rating it has could easily go up or possibly down depending one how much it stays and resonates with each individual.

I had to google what the title meant. It refers to the area around the Auschwitz concentration camp. It is never mentioned in the movie. Here is the trailer. The Zone of Interest is an easy film to recommend but perhaps not an easy one to watch.