The Zone of Interest

How do you go about making a film, ostensibly a leisure activity and source of entertainment, with nigh-on zero redeemable characters? In fact, a film where the majority are completely irredeemable to the point of representing true evil?

Jonathan Glazer’s remarkable The Zone of Interest achieves this, and not just by presenting ‘film as message’ or ‘film as experience’ although it certainly is both of these things.

It’s a horror film without being a horror film but enough to leave you with nightmares. The frighteningly true story of Rudolf Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz, and his family who live their horribly ‘normal’ lives in a manor house whose garden walls are those of the camp itself.

Glazer chooses not to depict the horror inside, only showing us the family go about their routine: hosting officials, seeing the kids off to school, swimming in the lake, having an in-law to stay and children’s birthday parties.

These scenes are soundtracked by the chilling sounds of the camp: shouts, barks and gunshots and intermingled with notes of Mica Levi’s truly terrifying score more akin to something like torture than actual music.

It’s a truly sickening and disturbing experience, showing evil in it’s various forms. A Hoss child copying the shouts of one of the guards, another locking his brother in the greenhouse to replicate the experience of those the other side of the wall.

It’s traumatising to see and to realise the complicity of anyone in evildoing, not just the perpetrators but those who stand aside, those who benefit and profit from these acts. It isn’t even necessarily trying to ‘force’ this message it merely ‘is’ this message. You cannot watch this film and feel anything other than pain and horror.

It is deliberately antagonistic and deliberately off putting, how could it not be, but there are two filmic decisions which will likely be debated: the first is two uses of blank screen which last quite a long time. Clearly moments to draw you into your own thoughts but arguably difficult for ‘non-arthouse’ viewers (it’s a difficult film to judge in this context given its subject matter but I think it’s important to note considering how it should be a film that as many people see as possible).

The other is the ending which, to my mind, is truly excellent. No spoilers here but once you take time to think about it and reflect, it leaves plenty to be discussed and is a truly brave and original thing but nonetheless is also something which will likely be debated.

A horrifying and disturbing experience that will stay with you and a ‘must-watch’ in every sense.

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