You may not understand it. You may be disturbed. However, you will never soon forget THE ZONE OF INTEREST. Courtesy of A24.THE ZONE OF INTEREST, Jonathan Glazer’s latest Oscar-buzzy film, may be the most chilling and effective Holocaust film I’ve ever seen. This is… WOW. My apologies if this review sounds confusing or out-of-place. This is a work of art – one of my favorites of 2023 – that I could talk about for hours. I had the privilege of attending a very advance screening of this film late last year, but I still can’t get it out of my head. I am ecstatic that it is finally making its premiere here in Philadelphia, although this darn snow happens to coincide at the same time!
There is no other film – Holocaust film or film in general – like it. The whole “you’ve-never-seen-anything-like-it!” compliment is a cliché, I know, but it doesn’t apply more than it does for THE ZONE OF INTEREST. Glazer has taken one of the most tragic moments in history and forced us to reckon with not just the guilt but the complicity of the Shoah. I warn you that THE ZONE OF INTEREST is extremely intense, but not for its content, per se. It’s rated PG-13, for a start, and there is absolutely no violence onscreen, which is obviously shocking for a film where the central characters are Nazis housed directly next to Auschwitz. What makes it so icky is how deep it digs into our mind with its simple stance: so many people knew about the genocide of Jews and did nothing. More than that, WE are still complicit in a way. We see films and images from those camps and feel sad, but then it goes away, and we go on with our lives. We read books and anecdotes about the camps, but those thoughts dissipate. We say “never forget” or “never again” on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and Yom HaShoah, but what happens the next day? Do we really “never forget?” Do we say it but then forget about it? Is the Holocaust fading away from memory and we just don’t know it?
These are deeply sensitive questions that Glazer (who is Jewish himself, I should add) explores in his arthouse masterpiece. First of all, for those who are unfamiliar with Glazer, this is only his fourth feature, but every film critic or movie buff has heard of and revered this man. His visual eye cannot be emulated. His previous films include Sexy Beast (2000), a crime drama starring Ben Kingsley, Birth (2004), a haunting romance about reincarnation, and Under the Skin (2013), a sci-fi thriller where Scarlett Johannson plays an alien who comes to London, seduces men, and steals their skin. Literally. (Yes, it’s a VERY bizarre movie!) His movies aren’t for everyone, but there’s no denying the power and originality in everything he creates. People walking into a theater expecting a “typical” Holocaust drama, a film about survivors in a camp with a beginning, middle, and end and the usual opening and closing titles giving context to the time period and setting of the story, may want to steer clear of THE ZONE OF INTEREST. This film is less of a movie and more of an auditory experience. It’s a work of art about sound and sight, visuals and score. From start to finish, you are like a fly on the wall in every frame of this movie, forced to comply with these atrocious human beings portrayed onscreen. It’s a frightening experience. There are people who still have trouble talking about the Shoah out of fear or sadness, but in THE ZONE OF INTEREST, there is no escaping the guilt.
Based on a novel by Martin Amis, THE ZONE OF INTEREST follows the Höss family and their daily lives housed directly behind the wall of Auschwitz. Rudolf (Christian Friedel), the father, is Commandant of the camp while his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller, extraordinarily despicable in the role), spends her days with their children, planting flowers in the garden while smoke from the crematorium floats neverendingly into the sky just over the wall. Every day is eerily normal for this family. Gunshots, smoke, and blood-curdling screams permeate the air while they have people over for tea, swim in the pool, and manage the greenhouse. In one scene, Hedwig is given a coat that was taken from a Jewish woman and tries it on in her room like she just bought it. In another moment, one of the children turns on their flashlight in bed at night and looks at dental fillings…
Polish cinematographer Łukasz Żal is extremely particular with the camera in THE ZONE OF INTEREST. There are a multitude of shots per sequence that are made to look like there are CCTV cameras set up around the room. Before Rudolf enters the living room, for example, we first see him walk through the kitchen before it cuts to him entering the threshold of the living room and THEN there is final shot of him entering his destination. As viewers, we are made to believe we are the CCTV cameras themselves, stagnant and forced to endure the happenings.
This feeling of forced complicity is done in a plethora of other moments throughout the film. Glazer sets up his camera close to a bunch of flowers, slowly zooming further into the plants after each shot while the screams from the camp get louder and louder. We feel trapped in this moment. We see the beauty of the shot (the flowers) mixed with the terror (the screams). The flowers may even be interpreted like the CCTV-feel of the other shots: stagnation. Flowers sit still while massacres occur around them. Nothing is done to stop the terror. The final shots of this movie, which I won’t give away, are perhaps the most chilling in the way they make us think of modern-day complicity with the Shoah. You may not understand the imagery at first, but everything sticks with you long after the movie. EVERY image and sound have meaning in this film. Their significance isn’t something we would like to delve into, which is exactly the problem Glazer points out in THE ZONE OF INTEREST. The more we dissuade ourselves from accepting some type of culpability for the Holocaust or failures for wishing to have stopped it, the more this tragedy fades away.
Has this movie blown your mind by this review? I sure hope so! And even if you don’t know what I’m saying, even if you’re discouraged or unsure of everything I’ve said, I still encourage you to check out this movie by any means necessary. It is a very different kind of Holocaust film, of course, and although it may be abstract at first viewing, it will absolutely trigger you. Prepare to be shaken!
THE ZONE OF INTEREST is now playing in select theaters.