The Zone of Interest
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Starring: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller & Johann Karthaus
Runtime: 1 hour 46 mins
Genre: Historical War Drama
IMDb : Click Here
With A24's The Zone of Interest, I have the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle in watching all 10 Oscar nominated movies.
Having won Outstanding British Film of the Year, Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Sound (Beating Oppenheimer of all films!) at the recent BAFTA awards, this was a movie I was very keen to add to my list.
The Zone of Interest is an amazing film. It's a film that concentrates on not what is on screen but rather what is out of view. It is in a sense one long juxtaposition. The title, The Zone of Interest refers to the families zone or area of interest, (i.e anything within their four walls and nothing outside of it). Relative domestic bliss is juxtaposed with the horrors that are happening over their garden wall in the concentration camp. The father taking steps to block out the horrors of the camp for his children by employing the services of a soldier whose sole purpose was to rev a motorbike engine to mask the sound of screams and gunshots. (True story).
Very much like Schindler's List and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The Zone of Interest is a very effecting film. What is the most chilling aspect of it is the mundane way in which the father, mother and their children just go about their everyday life. The film opens up with a relatively normal domestic household scene, kids go off to school, wife bids her husband farewell for the day as he leaves for work. But his is no ordinary job, he is not a baker, a shop owner or a tradesman he is the commandant of Auschwitz which at its height murdered 1.1 million people.
The mundane domesticity is superbly juxtaposed against the horrors of the camp, For example, Hedwig (Hüller) is trying on with delight a new fur coat in her bedroom to the backdrop of babies crying, screaming and gun shots. This fur coat itself (with lipstick in pocket) is from Kanada (Not the country Canada) but the name given to the vast storehouse in Auschwitz used for confiscated prisoners belongings. In another scene, their kids play in their garden pool, splashing and having a great time wholly oblivious to the fact there are children of the same age and even younger not 30 feet away experiencing a completely different type experience with water.
Christian Friedel as commandant Rudolf Höss is excellent and this is the second film this month to feature Sandra Hüller, the first being Anatomy of a Fall, she is also superb as Hedwig his wife.
Special mention must also be made to sound, no wonder it won Best Sound at the BAFTAS, from the eerie prolonged opening (accompanied by a black screen) to the sporadic "Dune-esque" "tuba like sounds" it has very chilling and unique sound design. It will be a very close race next month at the Oscars with Oppenheimer.
Finally the film has a particularly poignant end cutting to present day Auschwitz showing some of the original preserved artifacts in the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum whilst cutting back to Hoss walking down an increasingly dark stairway signifying the dark path he took in humanities worst atrocity.
Not the easiest watch but unforgettable.
Verdict: Unmissable
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