The Zone of Interest (2023) | REVIEW

Directed by Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin) — Screenplay by Jonathan Glazer.

The other day, I overheard someone claim that she didn’t need to watch or read the news and that she shouldn’t be expected to. The memory of that remark came back to me after I saw The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s BAFTA-winning German-language World War Two historical drama about evil, complicity, wilful ignorance, what is happening just outside our borders, and the walls that we create and construct for ourselves as a means to hide from the meanness, ugliness, and cruelty of the world. Now, I definitely don’t mean to compare an ignorant remark from someone that I just overheard with a Nazi commandant and his family, who are the principal characters of The Zone of Interest, but that person’s insistence on not keeping themselves informed reminded me of just how many people make a choice not to engage with politics and world events even at a time of great injustice in the world (e.g. the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the Israel-Hamas war). The Zone of Interest is a film about Nazis going about their day with ease, talking about mass genocide as if it is statistics, and turning a blind eye to what is happening in the concentration camp next door. But it also holds a mirror up to the modern day to remind us to stay informed, as well as to stay vigilant and look out for the kind of evil that may be happening around us. It also is a disturbing and clear-eyed fly-on-the-wall-esque example of the complexities of historical perspectives that we are afraid to try to understand. The film highlights how evil seeps into the games children play when their world is surrounded by cruelty, and how easy it is for some people to commit monstrous acts thoughtlessly. It is an extraordinary film, but also one that will be testing for a lot of people — not because of its visuals but because of the images its soundscape conjures up in your head and for how untraditional Glazer’s approach is.

Based on Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest is set in 1943 and it follows Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss (played by Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (played by Sandra Hüller) as they, along with their children, carry out their daily lives in what they perceive to be perfectly idyllic paradise in their home that also includes a magnificent flower garden and a swimming pool. Their home, however, sits right next to the Auschwitz concentration/extermination camp. While the family has family dinners, pool parties, and tends to the garden in their paradise, hell on earth exists right over the garden wall, where Nazis are carrying out their so-called ‘Final Solution’ by killing a group of people that we now know as the victims of the Holocaust. When Höss eventually receives a promotion that would take the family back to Berlin, it becomes clear just how happy his family, especially its matriarch Hedwig, is living right next to history’s most well-known genocide. 

It probably won’t surprise you to know that there are a lot of films about the Second World War. It’s not just one of the most talked about moments in human history, it is also one of the periods that filmmakers repeatedly return to in an attempt to showcase skill, highlight a central lesson, or emphasize the gravity of a certain situation. Especially in Europe, it feels like the kind of topic that history teachers obsess over and that filmmakers routinely circle back to. I know that, in Denmark, a lot of money is spent on theatrically released films about said war or the post-war period such as Ole Christian Madsen’s Flame & Citron, Martin Zandvliet’s Land of Mine, Roni Ezra’s April 9th, and last year’s Before It Ends from director Anders Walter. I suspect the same is the case with several other nations all over Europe. Heck, just look at last year. Even if you exclude Walter and Glazer’s films, there are plenty of films at least in some way related to World War Two. One of the biggest films of the year, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, is about an American perspective (and his previous effort Dunkirk was about a British perspective) on the war, and then there’s something like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny which has a Nazi villain played by Mads Mikkelsen. 

The point is that there are many different approaches to, and perspectives on, the war. You can create blockbusters around it, traditional biopics, documentaries, or period pieces. When it comes to films about the Final Solution, the so-called Endlösung, or the Holocaust, we often see films about saviors or heroes with the most well-known example undoubtedly being Stephen Spielberg’s Oscar-winning masterpiece Schindler’s List. But Jonathan Glazer’s approach is very different. His film is not about heroes or saviors. Glazer isn’t interested in making just another film to add to a list of films related to the Holocaust. Rather, Glazer’s approach is one that feels like it has art film ambitions. It is the kind of film that feels like a museum piece or an experiment. The Zone of Interest doesn’t feature much of a plot, it isn’t about heroes, it isn’t about the victims, and the film isn’t presented in close-ups meant to conjure up Hollywoodized emotions, just as it isn’t the kind of approach that’ll lead to a lot of footage for its principal cast to put on their acting reels (now, this isn’t to say that there are no standout performances, as Sandra Hüller has a few scenes that are memorable for how she illustrates her character’s screwed up headspace). 

I realize I’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about what the film isn’t, but I do this, frankly, for the purpose of preparing you for the kind of unparalleled experience that this film truly is. For some, it will be testing in ways that I don’t think they expect from a film about the genocide most often depicted in feature films. At 105 minutes, Glazer’s film mostly just stays with the family. To capture a version of period reality, he created what he calls ‘Big Brother in the Nazi house’ by planting loads of cameras in and around the reconstructed Höss family compound and letting his actors perform their scenes in an environment closer to reality than what normally goes on with a major film about the Holocaust. The result is a lot of eerily casual scenes with the family along with the occasional horrifying topics of discussion, lines, actions, or aggressions played as if it is just another day in their lives (with only very few exceptions). Visually, Glazer’s film steers clear of the kind of stylistic traits that can help to keep the film at an arm’s length from the viewers. Unlike Schindler’s List, for example, there isn’t any black and white to be found here. Rather, Glazer is going for a kind of modern and yet uncinematic and unmanipulated image wherein he often places his characters in the center of the frame in wide shots. That said, there are two major ways that Glazer eventually abandons his method with one of them being this instance of thermal filmmaking (that resembles a night vision look) that showcases the film’s one and only representation of light in the world, which feels like his version of Spielberg’s little girl in the red coat.

Glazer’s focus is his historical central characters’ capacity for evil, and how it is illustrated in their sense of normalcy. Glazer keeps the outright evil at the edge of the frame, as we see the smoke and fire of the incineration chamber rise up to the sky, the human remains being used for the soil or dropped into the nearby river. We never actually see death on-screen. We don’t actually see what is going on inside the extermination camps. But Glazer is working with the idea that we already know for certain exactly what’s going on. That is just one element of the film — the visual. What makes the film into what it is, though, is the soundscape that turns the casual lifestyle of a Nazi family from monstrosity and cruelty into outright horror. While the film may look away from the horror, the film does not allow its audience to block out the sound of genocide. It presents itself as an inescapable and near-constant nightmarish soundscape with sounds of screams, gunfire, and more that, in totality, conjure up so many images in your head. Glazer’s approach made me think quite a bit of the oft-cited Martin Scorsese quote: “Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out,” and the way that Glazer has orchestrated his cinematic experience allows for your imagination to torture you and the on-screen mundanity to chill you. 

Visually and audibly these are, in a way, two vastly different films in one, but it is in the melding of the two together that the disturbing film soars and finds a way through to your innermost thoughts and reflections about life, the nature of evil, and vigilance needed to ensure that such things can never happen again. Because the act of thoughtlessness, the turning off of your humanity, or the active decision to ignore the cruelty of the world around you can be the very ingredients of a pitch-black heart. And with enough black hearts, then… well, history has shown us exactly what that may lead to. One might say that this is a film that asks you to scrutinize what you perceive to be normal and what moments of thoughtlessness and wilful ignorance you allow. It is far too easy for people to turn off the news or ignore a social media post depicting mass genocide or invasions in our day and age, and one might ask when exactly you, yourself, are complicit, if you choose to detach from the world and scroll past the news without engaging with, or reflect on, it in some way, shape, or form. 

A disturbing vortex of darkness obscured by mundanity, it is an impressive, masterful, and powerful piece of art filmmaking — I liken it to a museum experience more so than a dramatic or entertaining World War Two adaptation — but if you think it sounds hellish or repetitive, then you’re not exactly wrong. There absolutely will be people who think of this as an experience that knocks you over the head with a single point over and over again. Is the lack of a plot and its pacing challenging? Perhaps. Is it a tough watch? Absolutely. But I think it serves a purpose. Like I said, admittedly, it does seem to be making the same point throughout. If it were shoddily made, one might call it a one-trick pony, but since it’s a near-masterpiece, it feels much more appropriate to say that it executes on its single idea exceptionally, horrifyingly, and masterfully well. A call to engagement and involvement. A test of humanity. It’s a reminder to take the astonishment and horror that this film brings to you and use it to speak up before your soul perishes in the thoughtlessness of politically orchestrated but unjust perceived normalcy. Because if you don’t, then how have we ever really learned from this? Don’t allow yourself to be numb to the cruelties of the world. Don’t let it be normal. Or history will judge you accordingly. 

9.5 out of 10

– Review written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.