Jonathan Glazer's "The Zone of Interest" is a masterful and deeply unsettling film that approaches the Holocaust from a perspective rarely seen in cinema. Based on Martin Amis's novel, the film follows the domestic life of Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz, and his family as they live in a beautiful home with a garden right next to the concentration camp.
What makes the film so powerful is its deliberate restraint - we never see the atrocities directly, but they are constantly present through sound design, distant smoke, and the casual conversations about the camp. This approach creates a devastating portrait of the banality of evil.
Chilling Normality
The film's power comes from several elements:
- The clinical, detached cinematography creates an observational distance
- Mica Levi's haunting score enhances the underlying horror
- The sound design subtly incorporates the sounds of the camp
- The performances capture the disturbing normality of the family's life
- The contrast between domestic bliss and industrial genocide is devastating
Sandra Hüller gives a chilling performance as Hedwig Höss, portraying a woman completely focused on creating her ideal home while ignoring the horrors next door. Christian Friedel's Rudolf is equally disturbing in his bureaucratic approach to mass murder. "The Zone of Interest" is not an easy film to watch, but it's an essential one that forces us to confront how ordinary people can participate in extraordinary evil.