The Zone of Interest

Immediately following the opening production logos, the pure white background flips to black. The title of the film appears in white letters, which then slowly, painstakingly fade into the background over the course of a minute or so. Once we’ve reached complete darkness, director Jonathan Glazier leaves us to our thoughts, not a sound to be heard, for what must be another two or three whole minutes. After what feels like an eternity, we hear the noises of birds chirping, a lovely spring day awaiting us. But before he shows us the scene, he confines us to darkness for another sixty seconds.

All of this serves to prepare you for what you’re about to experience.

The whole time the screen is blank, you cannot help but search the blackness for any hint of information. The obvious, what’s right in front of your face, is not the point. You must pay attention, explore the whole frame, look in the backgrounds or sometimes just off center to understand. As the movie gets going, just about every frame which takes place outside contains visual evidence of the horrifying atrocities occurring right on the other side of the wall. The wall topped with barbed wire, a guard tower standing just on the other side. Because this lovely little home, where you’ll spend most of the next 100 minutes, shares an exterior wall with Auschwitz. The family who inhabits it? Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), commandant of Auschwitz, architect of its sickening efficiency and brutality, along with his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller).

The story is a portrait of life in the Höss household. Kids run around and play, women chat about wallpaper and gardening and snap at their domestic staff, and men work at the camps, considering how to make their operation run more smoothly. There’s only one true moment of drama, in which Rudolf gets word he’s to be transferred: an upsetting notion, given how happy his family is in this place.

We experience all this as if a visitor in their home. We see them go about their lives, never getting a peak at what’s going on behind those walls. Which is where searching the frame comes into play.

It’s in the smoke belching from unmistakable chimneys, periodically tinged with flame, a fact given more depth by some earlier conversations. It’s when Rudolf is watching his kids in the pool, and just over the top of their greenhouse we see a thin cloud of smoke form from right to left, indicating the arrival of a locomotive, presumably carrying a full load to be fed to the furnaces. It’s when a swirling current of foamy water chases Rudolf and his kids from out of the river they were playing, leading to an aggressive bath which leaves behind ash stains on the tub.

But the most important and most harrowing element is the sound design, which is some of the best and most affecting I’ve ever encountered.

Any scene which takes place around the house (most of them) is drenched in an unmistakable soundscape. There is a constant mechanical drone. It continues without stopping, all day and all night. Retreating into the house dulls it some, but even with the windows closed it is inescapable. It serves as a constant reminder of that which is mere feet away, out of sight. And yet, those who live there are unfazed. They never once remark on it, not even when it’s punctuated by gunshots or yelling or the screams of prisoners, which is often. It is the background of their lives, and simply affirms to them that their men are serving their country well. In turn, it informs us that everyone present is complicit in the atrocities being committed. At best, they don’t care. But given the casually tossed off Antisemitism, you’d not be out of line to surmise their eager support.

Possibly most disturbing is watching this auditory sickness work its way into the children. While they’re already immune to the cries from next door, there is one moment where they seem to hear, albeit subconsciously. At night, as his older brother Klaus (Johann Karthaus) examines teeth on the top bunk, Hans-Jürgen (Luis Noah Witte) starts making a series of noises. When his brother asks, he does it again. And we realize the unsettling truth: he’s imitating the sounds of the furnaces, wafting in on the night air.

Making a Nazi your protagonist is a thorny prospect, but Glazier navigates it deftly. There is no need to make Rudolf a buffoon, to insert any characters who shout down what’s happening, or to directly show us the horrors of the camps. Simply by having the Höss family living normal lives against the backdrop of unbelievable evil, Glazier manages to condemn them in the strongest possible terms. The contrast between what their actions mean to the world and their nonchalance is enough to highlight that these people are beyond rehabilitation, beyond forgiveness. We witness the textbook definition of the banality of evil: so self-concerned as to call a home “paradise” which sits directly next to buildings where innocent people are burned alive by the thousands.

This is a film which takes its time getting where it’s going, giving you ample chance to soak in every single implication of every event. It’s not for the faint of heart, for while it doesn’t actually show anything, the non-visual experience of all manner of abhorrent actions is enough to make anyone ill. That being said, I strongly believe it’s important for us to stare down and confront darkness, to ensure we’re able to recognize and act upon it when it rears its ugly head. Part of that is the understanding that cartoonish villains are not required for terrible deeds. Far more often, the greatest acts of terror are carried out by those who stick to the shadows, having convinced themselves they’re only doing what’s right and necessary. For in self-righteousness lies the power of ordinary people to become history’s greatest monsters.