The Zone of Interest (2023): Movie Review

Introduction

Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” stands as one of the most haunting and unconventional Holocaust films ever made. Released in 2023 to critical acclaim, this methodical examination of mundane evil offers a perspective rarely explored in cinema. The film adapts Martin Amis’s 2014 novel of the same name, though Glazer takes significant creative liberties with the source material to craft something entirely unique. The Zone of Interest challenges viewers not with graphic depictions of atrocity, but with the chilling normality of those who perpetuated history’s greatest horrors.

Synopsis

Set during World War II, The Zone of Interest follows the domestic life of Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller). The couple and their children live in a beautiful home with a garden, separated from the camp by only a wall. As Rudolf efficiently manages the mass murder of thousands, his family pursues domestic bliss just meters away from unimaginable suffering.

The film’s power lies in what it chooses not to show. The horrors of the camp are relegated to background noise—distant screams, gunshots, and the glow of crematorium fires visible over the garden wall. Instead, we observe the Höss family’s pursuit of ordinary happiness in extraordinary circumstances, creating a profound and deeply uncomfortable contrast.

Technical Brilliance

Visual Storytelling

Glazer’s direction, alongside cinematographer Łukasz Żal, employs clinical precision in every frame. The film utilizes:

• Static, symmetrical shots reminiscent of surveillance footage
• Natural lighting that creates an unsettling beauty
• Deliberate framing that often places the camp just out of sight
• A muted color palette punctuated by moments of domestic vibrancy

The camera work serves as a character itself—an unflinching observer documenting the banal face of evil without commentary or emotional manipulation. This technique forces viewers to confront the reality of how easily humans can compartmentalize atrocity.

Sound Design

The Zone of Interest features one of the most remarkable sound designs in recent cinema. Sound designer Johnnie Burn creates an auditory landscape that tells the story the visuals refuse to show:

1. The constant, muffled sounds of the camp juxtaposed against domestic tranquility
2. Industrial noises suggesting the mechanization of murder
3. Nighttime sequences where the sounds of suffering intensify
4. Moments of unexpected silence that arrive with devastating impact

The sound becomes the film’s conscience—the inescapable reality that the characters have trained themselves to ignore but that the audience cannot.

Performances

Sandra Hüller delivers a masterful performance as Hedwig Höss, the lady of the house who has convinced herself she deserves the stolen Jewish goods that furnish her home and the plants taken from deportees that beautify her garden. Hüller, fresh off her acclaimed role in “Anatomy of a Fall,” portrays Hedwig with chilling ordinariness—a woman concerned with status and domestic comforts while remaining willfully blind to the source of her privileges. Her performance never veers into caricature; instead, she presents a frighteningly recognizable human being.

Christian Friedel’s portrayal of Rudolf Höss is equally remarkable in its restraint. He embodies the bureaucratic efficiency of evil—a man who views the murder of thousands as a logistical challenge rather than a moral abomination. Friedel captures Höss’s professional pride and domestic tenderness without ever asking for sympathy, creating one of cinema’s most disturbing portraits of normalized evil.

Historical Context

The Zone of Interest derives its title from the Nazi terminology for the areas surrounding concentration camps. The film is based on real historical figures—Rudolf Höss did indeed serve as the commandant of Auschwitz, living with his family in a house adjacent to the camp.

What makes the film particularly relevant to contemporary audiences is its examination of how ordinary people participate in extraordinary evil. This theme resonates with Hannah Arendt’s concept of “the banality of evil”—the idea that great atrocities are often perpetrated not by monsters but by unremarkable individuals following orders and seeking personal advancement.

Thematic Depth

The Normalization of Evil

The central theme of The Zone of Interest concerns how humans normalize atrocity. The film presents several disturbing examples:

• Family picnics by a river where camp smoke is visible in the distance
• Children playing with toys while prisoners are tortured nearby
• Dinner parties where career advancement within the SS is casually discussed
• Domestic arguments that reveal more concern for social status than moral questions

These juxtapositions force viewers to consider how systems of oppression rely not just on active perpetrators but on the willing blindness of those who benefit from suffering.

Complicity and Self-Deception

Hedwig’s character particularly exemplifies the theme of willing complicity. She has constructed elaborate justifications for her lifestyle:

“We build a better world for our children right here.”

This self-deception allows her to view her family’s prosperity not as the fruit of mass murder but as a deserved reward for their service to the Reich. The film suggests that evil on a mass scale requires not just leaders giving orders but ordinary people choosing comfort over conscience.

Visual Storytelling

Glazer makes the bold choice to never show the inside of the camp directly. Instead, he uses visual metaphors and symbolic imagery:

• The immaculate garden representing cultivated German ideals growing alongside industrialized death
• Water imagery suggesting both purification and the washing away of guilt
• Night scenes where the glow of the crematoriums illuminates the family home
• Close-ups of domestic objects (jewelry, furniture, clothing) that were likely stolen from victims

These visual choices create a profound sense of complicity in the viewer—we too are witnessing atrocity from a comfortable distance.

Critical Reception

The Zone of Interest received universal acclaim upon its release. It won the Grand Prix at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and garnered nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best International Feature, Best Sound, and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 96th Academy Awards.

Critics praised the film’s unflinching approach and technical brilliance. Many noted how it offers a new perspective on a historical period that has been extensively covered in cinema. As one reviewer wrote in The New Yorker, “Glazer has found a way to make the Holocaust feel immediate and present in a way few filmmakers have managed.”

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Comparisons to Other Holocaust Films

The Zone of Interest stands apart from other notable Holocaust films:

• Unlike “Schindler’s List,” it offers no redemptive character to offset the horror
• In contrast to “Son of Saul,” it keeps atrocity at a distance rather than immersing viewers in it
• Unlike “Life is Beautiful,” it offers no protective fable or humor to cushion the reality
• In opposition to “The Pianist,” it focuses on perpetrators rather than victims

This approach makes the film uniquely challenging. By denying viewers both graphic horror and emotional catharsis, Glazer forces a more intellectual and ultimately more disturbing engagement with history.

The Ending

The film’s final sequence represents one of the most powerful conclusions in recent cinema. Without spoiling the specific details, Glazer makes a bold temporal and spatial leap that connects the historical events to the present day. This conclusion suggests that the mechanisms that enabled the Holocaust—bureaucratic efficiency, willful blindness, and the human capacity for compartmentalization—remain with us today.

Cinematography and Visual Design

Łukasz Żal’s cinematography deserves special attention for its precision and restraint. The film was shot using multiple hidden cameras placed throughout the house set, allowing actors to move naturally through spaces without awareness of exact camera positions. This technique creates:

• An observational, almost documentary-like quality
• Performances free from camera consciousness
• A sense of witnessing rather than being told a story
• Visual compositions that feel found rather than constructed

This approach reinforces the film’s central thesis about observation and complicity—we are watching those who watched atrocity happen and did nothing.

Musical Score

Mica Levi’s sparse, dissonant score appears rarely but with devastating effect. Rather than traditional musical cues, the score manifests as abstract sound that blurs the line between music and noise. This approach:

• Avoids emotional manipulation through conventional scoring
• Creates moments of uncanny discomfort
• Reinforces the film’s refusal to provide catharsis
• Serves as a sonic representation of suppressed horror

The restraint in musical scoring allows the ambient sounds of the camp to create their own terrible melody throughout the film.

Legacy and Importance

The Zone of Interest represents a significant contribution to both Holocaust cinema and filmmaking more broadly. Its innovations in form and content demonstrate that even the most documented historical events can yield new insights when approached with artistic courage. The film’s relevance extends beyond its historical setting, speaking to contemporary concerns about:

• How ordinary people become complicit in systemic injustice
• The human capacity for moral compartmentalization
• The relationship between domestic comfort and distant suffering
• The aestheticization of evil through bourgeois values

In this way, The Zone of Interest functions not just as historical examination but as a mirror held up to modern audiences.

Director’s Background

Jonathan Glazer’s filmography is sparse but remarkable. With only four feature films in over 20 years—”Sexy Beast” (2000), “Birth” (2004), “Under the Skin” (2013), and now The Zone of Interest—he has established himself as one of cinema’s most precise and challenging auteurs. Each film explores human nature through distinct visual languages, but The Zone of Interest represents his most ambitious and accomplished work to date.

Glazer spent nearly a decade researching and developing the film, including extensive historical consultation and location work at Auschwitz. This commitment to historical accuracy combined with formal experimentation produces a work of rare integrity and power.

Conclusion

The Zone of Interest stands as one of the most important films of recent years—a work that finds a new language to discuss events that have been extensively depicted in cinema. By focusing on the mundane aspects of evil rather than its spectacular manifestations, Glazer creates a more insidious and ultimately more truthful portrait of how atrocity functions.

The film’s greatness lies in its refusal to provide easy answers or emotional release. It trusts viewers to draw their own conclusions from its meticulous depiction of ordinary life alongside extraordinary horror. In doing so, The Zone of Interest achieves what great art should: it makes the familiar strange and forces us to see anew what we thought we already understood.

For those with the courage to engage with its challenging approach, The Zone of Interest offers a profound meditation on human nature and historical memory that will remain with viewers long after the credits roll. It is not merely a film about the past but a warning about the present—a reminder of how easily we all create zones of interest that allow us to ignore suffering that doesn’t directly affect us.

Rating: ★★★★★

Originally posted 2025-03-14 21:37:22.