Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) lives with his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), and their five children. While Höss is at work, Hedwig gets the children ready for school, tends to the garden, and enjoys tea with her friends.  Their idyllic life is put in jeopardy when Höss is put up for a promotion that would require him to move to Berlin.  The orders come from Adolf Hitler himself who was impressed with Höss’ work at Auschwitz, specifically with the construction of a dual-chambered crematorium, and now wants the commandant to be the deputy inspector across all of the concentration camps. 

Jonathan Glazer directs The Zone of Interest from a script he wrote based on Martin Amis’ novel and he imbues the 105-minute film with a sense of contemplative high art and an equal serving of dread.  The Holocaust-adjacent, domestic drama was released by A24 who appeared to have been asleep at the wheel in getting this film out to an audience.  Despite having helped to produce the film ahead of its Cannes release where it was greatly lauded, the company held it for an award’s season theatrical release, not solely because of its potential to perform in the award circuit, but really it seems they were just buying time without having an idea how to platform it.  They gave it a punishingly slow domestic expansion and also played hardball with international distributors by demanding a steep fee for European distribution.  Even after its five nominations at the Academy Awards, it still has yet to breach 600 screens more than two weeks after the announcement and a hefty organic buzz campaign since its festival debut in May. 

More so than even the IMAX-branded countdown, Glazer prepares his audience for what is about to unfold with a minutes-long, largely sonic sequences over a black frame.  If it feels uncomfortable, it should, but it also sets up a feeling of artistic artifice which will ultimately hinder the film, insulating either the audience from what they are witnessing or Glazer from any speculation about his endeavor.  That this point is left unclear is strange, especially given how meticulous everything about The Zone of Interest is.  Glazer does not seem afraid of the subject matter, but rather, afraid for showing it and is slowly starting to build a wall between him and the rightful ire that he will potentially stir up in audiences.  This is seen most obviously in Łukasz Żal’s choice of camera angles and movements which capture the action from stationary cameras, and Paul Watts’ hard cuts from room to room, hallway to hallway, further reflecting the observatory nature of the film as if viewed through security monitors across the home, creating yet another protective barrier in a film that promises to take us deep into the lair of and under the skin of monsters.  

Once in the film proper, the cast delivers some incredible performances.  Unfolding in the shadow of Auschwitz, The Zone of Interest is an exploration of how one of the most heinous crimes against humanity was committed by humans. It does so by focusing not on the war, and not even directly on the atrocity, but the homestead of Hedwig, the self-proclaimed “Queen of Auschwitz,” as she goes about her days. Hüller keeps busy, lending a sense of frightening sense of acceptance on behalf of Hedwig, making the conscience choice to ignore the horror that her husband has orchestrated beyond the walls that she has carefully chosen bushes and ivy that will cover up the unsightly concrete slabs. As the film continues, Lina (Imogen Kogge), Hedwig’s mother, comes to stay for a while and Hedwig gives her a tour of the house. We see into almost every room, the pastel wallpaper giving it the sense of a dollhouse, as if life for Hedwig is all a game of make-believe but that sentiment lets this woman who is quite aware of her husband’s work off too easy.  Through the windows, we see the smokestacks and more so than Mica Levi’s mechanical score, we hear a symphony of sound cues from Johnnie Burn and his team: the gates opening and closing, the shouting of the SS, the screaming of the Jewish people, gunfire, train engines, squealing brakes. The war machine at work. Lina offers the only bit of reprieve for audiences as she shows disgust and sickness as she begins to realize and see what is being carried out beyond the wall, but she is hardly a moral beacon. Still supportive of the war effort at large, she holds a grudge that her neighbor outbid her on some curtains that belonged to a woman who very well could be yards away from her in Auschwitz, something she reveals to Hedwig while the two lounge in the courtyard garden. Instead of doing anything about this and meaningfully confronting her daughter, Lina runs away in the cover of night and the rudeness of the act is a chief offense in the eyes of Hedwig.  

Glazer’s whole point is immediately obvious from the opening minutes of the film. There is an even more artistic version of this film where Glazer forgoes the subtitles all together and lets the audience watch the events unfold without knowing the details of their mundane conversation.  In truth, our imagination would probably paint this family as more monstrous than the version that Glazer presents as for non-German ears, the talks of curtains and what to serve for dinner could very well be discussing in detail plans for what is going on beyond the walls.  Thankfully, though Glazer does not push the boundaries of his art that far, and knowing the banality of the conversations, it would be impossible to try and conjure what that experience might have been like for audiences that dare to give the film a second watch.  The approach that Glazer does take, to “show” the horrors of the Holocaust through the sound design, he turns the very real and very tragic crimes committed by Hitler and his regime into a bit of a shtick daring audiences to either think – or not think – about the Holocaust. 

It is hard to tell exactly how much emphasis Glazer wants to put on the atrocity because, even though he never absolves Höss for his instrumental role in the murder of millions, The Zone of Interest operates in a shockingly amoral plane.  Höss panics in a scene that comes in the middle of the film when he is with two of his children in the river and he steps on a jawbone.  The horror he expresses though is never calculated out past his paternal duty to protect his children as he scoops them out of the water and back onto the boat.  He never wrestles with the reason of why there would be human jaw bones in the river by his home, the answer of which would lead him to realize in stark terms that his work is killing people.  Later, he remarks to his wife that he was not paying attention during a party gala because he was trying to figure out how he would gas the attendees and was distraught because the ceiling was too high.  As he departs the venue, he stops as he feels as if he is going to vomit, but he stomachs the bile and continues on his way.  A generous reading could be that the guilt of his actions are finally weighing down on him after for the first time telling Hedwig in explicit detail the nature of his work, and while none of us including Glazer could answer for Höss’ conscience, the version of this man that he presents to us does not seem to be one that feels remorse.   

In between Höss’ heaving, Glazers jumps the narrative forward in time through another artistic cut.  We now see the custodians of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum as they go about their closing duties.  In the same way that we saw Hedwig tend to the home, we now see the staff vacuum the carpets, sweep the tile, clean the glass, and shine the railings.  In between these checklist items, Żal’s camera takes in some of the exhibits – the shoes, the suitcases, the clothes – but it feels like an indictment of the audience as if Glazer is saying that we in the theatre seats have forgotten because this ground is being treated with the same daily monotony as Hedwig treated her home.  An incredibly damning reading can also be gleaned as if he is goading the audience, insinuating that they sought out his film to see the atrocity and violence, and instead, he kept us at arm’s length opting only to show us the result as if to rub our nose in it as punishment for buying a ticket knowing what could be shown. With so much art having been made in the wake of WWII to try and process the sheer inhumanity of what occurred, The Zone of Interest, while a technical marvel, asks more questions of the audience than it does of history. The purpose of its artist is under so thick a veil that it is hard to determine just what he was trying to say here and though it feels disingenuous to say, it is not totally off base that the film fetishizes its proximity to the tragedy and then blames the audience for wanting Glazer to address the topic head-on. 

The Zone of Interest is a difficult film to talk about for a variety of reasons, most obviously the subject matter, but also in its construction, both of which have been assembled a presented in such a way as to insulate Glazer from criticism any harsher than the soft scolding which he levies at the Höss family. It is hard to call the film an outright success even though it is not condoning the actions of the Nazis during WWII, it does not seem to be condemning them either in the extended time we spend with the Hösses. Shot and edited following many of the pillars of slow cinema, we find ourselves at the dinner table, in the bedroom, and at the office with a man who was just following orders and his wife who enjoyed the lavish lifestyle her husband was able to provide her. It is understandable that audiences may have a visceral reaction to seeing this family in their success, and the onus is then on Glazer to defend why he chose this avenue into the story. What is he trying to say? To show? The message is unclear, clouded by the exceptionally conceived and executed technical aspects, that while any levelheaded audience will bring in their rightful condemnation of the Nazi regime and their actions, that Glazer’s approach to the Nazis, especially ones at this high a level within the party, has even a shred of sympathy is, quite frankly, a disgusting and low form of provocation.