The Zone of Interest (2023)

 

The Zone of Interest raises some very intriguing questions, such as how we can live so close (in the movie’s case, literally) to horrible atrocities but maintain some semblance of normalcy. Wouldn’t the awfulness of what we are close to begin to affect us? Wouldn’t we start to behave differently if we were constantly so close to terrible events and activities? What if we are complicit in the atrocities that are happening? Doesn’t that alter who we are and what we do? The film shows us what kind of effect living next door to a site of such evil might have, but it does so gradually. The Zone of Interest moves at a very leisurely pace, in some respects, but it grows increasing more tense as the film progresses.

The Hoss family lives next door to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. The father, Rudolf (played by Christian Friedel), serves as the commandant at the camp whose idea it is to exterminate the Jewish prisoners around the clock. He even oversees the installation of a new crematorium at Auschwitz that blazes throughout the night.  He seems rather cold and methodical at first, and he’s so efficient at his horrific occupation that he’s transferred to take command of all of the camps under Nazi control. He also demonstrates the more mundane aspects of life, such as turning off the lights and closing all the doors before going to bed at night. Those moments are often filmed at a rather astonishingly leisurely pace.

His wife, Hedwig (the great Sandra Huller, who had a great year in 2023 with this film and Anatomy of a Fall), keeps the household running efficiently, but she likes a comfortable life and doesn’t want to move away even though she and her children (two young boys, three young girls, including a baby girl) live next door to a concentration camp. She gets other benefits from being so close to the camp besides a nice house, though. Her husband sends her all kinds of clothing and other items taken from the Jewish prisoners. She keeps a fur coat (and a lipstick from its pocket) and gives other items to her servants. She’s rather distant and methodical about all of this herself, particularly when she’s overseeing the various upgrades to the house. She knows what’s on the other side of her garden wall, but she doesn’t acknowledge what is going on at the camp. In fact, she’s rather indifferent to his news about a promotion or his prowess at murdering other human beings.

Interestingly, we as viewers never see any of the camp or its activities. We can hear the screams and gunshots, but we aren’t witness to the killings themselves. Fires burn all the time, and we know what that means, but again, the filmmakers have chosen not to depict the atrocities on screen. The gunshots and furnaces are very disconcerting, as is the musical score, which is really very disorienting. It makes sense, though, for the music to bother us since we at least need to feel some of the anxiety that the characters should be feeling. Otherwise, we might think that this is a rather idyllic depiction of life in the country. The family goes swimming in the nearby river, they acquire a new canoe, and Hedwig even grows beautiful flowers and lots of vegetables in her garden. The garden happens to be on the other side of a wall from a concentration camp, but that doesn’t seem to bother the family members. We see just a few moments, such as when ashes start to flow down the river where Rudolph is fishing and his children are playing in the water, where the activities of the camp enter into their lives.

People in the family start to be affected by their proximity to the concentration camp. Again, how could you live next door and not be affected? Hedwig’s mother arrives for a visit, and she seems blasé about the prisoners next door, even wondering at one point if the woman she used to clean for might be one of them. (She missed out on purchasing the woman’s curtains in an auction of stolen property.) She begins coughing a lot almost immediately, perhaps from all the smoke in the air. At night, the sky is red from the fires, and it becomes too much for her. The fire and the smoke and the gunshots lead to her departing in the middle of the night; she leaves a note for her daughter and just disappears. The older son becomes much crueler as the film progresses, as if he has been given license by the awfulness of what’s happening at the camp. At one point, he locks his younger brother in the greenhouse and laughs at the boy’s predicament.

Rudolph, however, might be affected the most. Despite his claims during a medical examination that he’s well, he starts to dry heave after a party attended by Nazis and others. He tells his wife over the phone that he’s been calculating (or fantasizing) about how might be able to kill entire room full of people. It’s a chilling moment, and then he gets sick to his stomach. I don’t think this makes him sympathetic. It’s just another puzzling moment for us as viewers to ponder. Is his body trying to tell him something? He doesn’t seem to be listening to it or learning.

The film is based on a novel about real people and events. We all know about the horrors of the Holocaust, but this may be the first film to depict those horrors without showing them on the screen. You don’t get to see what actually happens in the camps, but do you need to at this point? That’s another one of those questions that are raised by the film. Is it awful enough that we witness Hedwig talking to her husband about what they’re going to do when the war ends? She’s obviously under the impression that the Germans are going to win, and she has plans for further renovations and improvements at her home.

I will readily admit that I don’t understand everything that occurs in the film. For instance, the movie features a couple of scenes where a young girl leaves apples for workers in the fields outside the concentration camp. It’s shot in what appears to be night vision, and it’s never entirely clear to me who she is or why she’s leaving the food. She always seems to appear in the movie when Rudolph is reading a fairy tale to one of his children. We also watch several women cleaning a Holocaust museum in the present day, presumably the camp at Auschwitz. We’ve seen some of the displays before, such as the massive number of shoes taken from the prisoners, so this sequence’s purpose in the overall film is unclear. The dog, Dilla, also steals the movie at times, probably because we need some relief from the intensity of everything else that’s happening on the screen. Perhaps the dog is meant to show someone or something innocent since it doesn’t know what’s going on and just wants to follow people around. Even that idea, though, comes with some questions about who could be truly innocent in circumstances like these.

The film starts (and ends) with a black screen and very disturbing music. We have no legend to tell us as viewers when or where we are as the film starts, and we have to figure out as details emerge that we’re actually witnessing Nazi atrocities. We also pause in the middle of the film and have a red screen accompanied by discordant music. Such moments don’t really allow you much of an opportunity to process how you’re feeling about what you’ve seen and heard. The music just puts you off any sort of quiet reflection.

Oscar Wins: Best International Feature Film and Best Sound

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing (Jonathan Glazer), and Best Adapted Screenplay