Film Impact and Lasting Impressions
From the world of film experiences, there are certain films, a good number of them, that make an impression when we first watch them but then lose their impact when we leave the theater, like sand through our fingers. There is, on the other hand, a second class, much fewer in number, which is characterized by its capacity to electrify the spectator on the first viewing, leaving a lasting impression and causing mild but permanent changes to the way that one views films. We categorically place Jonathan Glazer’s groundbreaking and extremely unnerving work, The Zone of Interest, in the latter category. When we left its screening, we were stunned and deeply moved, and throughout the next few months, its impact remained, stubbornly refusing to go.
Naturally, the question emerges: what is The Zone of Interest‘s fundamental goal? The query has remained after the viewings of Glazer’s work, which is unusual for our cinema interactions. By their very nature, films are meant to accomplish a variety of goals: they might be creative works of art, tell gripping stories, promote causes, expose injustices, or just make money. But clearly, the central theme of Glazer’s work is empty, conceited artistic experimentation against the horrific backdrop of Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
Following a ten-year hiatus from feature filmmaking, Glazer last impressed viewers with his eerily beautiful horror classic, Under the Skin, in 2013. The Zone of Interest explores the horror genre similarly, though very differently. It is a visual look at the most horrific crimes committed during the Holocaust, with themes of marital camaraderie, hopes for one’s parents, conformity to social norms, hard work, and the belief that one deserves the best life has to offer all woven throughout. Essentially, it addresses the shared goals and ambitions of all people, deeply entwined with the unfathomable atrocities of history’s darkest periods.
Directed and written with great care by Glazer, the film is a film adaptation, loosely based on Martin Amis’s 2014 novel of the same name. With a solid research base—as demonstrated by Amis’s long list of references in the poignant epilogue—the work is told from the perspectives of three characters, one of whom is a fictitious account of Rudolf Höss, the notorious S.S. commandant who oversaw Auschwitz for a considerable portion of its existence. It is in the furnace of cruelty that Höss oversaw a factory of suffering and death, where, according to figures from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, some 1.1 million victims—mostly of Jewish descent—met a terrible end.
The central idea of the film version is an eerie contrast: a beautiful home built on the ashes of shared nightmares. The house, which serves as a symbol of family unity, is a reminder of normalcy in the horrifying context of Auschwitz’s horrors. The opening scenes of the film provide a window into the peaceful lives of its residents, who are shown enjoying themselves in leisurely wide views along a stream that is surrounded by lush greenery. Even when they are hidden from direct view, their constant happiness is evident; they appear to be bathing in the beneficent light of the sphere, which seems to shine just on them.
It would be inaccurate to classify The Zone of Interest as just an adapted screenplay, even though it was nominated for an Oscar in that area along with four other categories, most notably Best Picture and Best Director. The film comes out as a dark, boldly unorthodox work in and of itself, only referencing Amis’s novel in the title and location—Auschwitz, or more accurately, the area immediately outside the camp, in the home of a high-ranking Nazi official and his family. But if we look below these surface similarities, we can see how different the two media are from one another.
The Source Material
During the process of adaptation, Glazer chooses to depart greatly from Amis’s story, leaving out a large number of the novel’s characters, storylines, and creativity, often bordering on absurd, linguistic, and tonal subtleties. The novel’s thematic investigation of the contrast between the ordinary lives of persons who are not prisoners and the horrifying atrocities taking place in the extermination camp, on the other hand, is still present. While Amis often alludes to and painstakingly details the barbarism of the camp in his prose—as eloquently demonstrated by descriptions like the “daily berm of corpses”—Glazer purposefully stays away from such graphic portrayals.
In the lead role of the strong family group is Rudolf, whose devoted work and steadfast devotion have earned him great privilege; he becomes Auschwitz’s commandant. He is accompanied by his spouse, Hedwig, who resides next to him in an opulent home at the camp’s edge. Showing off their home to Hedwig’s visiting mother, she points to the inadequate brick wall dividing their land from the camp’s boundaries. “The Jews are over the wall,” she says nonchalantly, regarding the existence of suffering close by as a minor nuisance rather than a cause for real concern. She then makes a passing reference to their attempts to hide the terrible truth by growing more vines.
Enclosed walls are central to the film’s theme; they are symbolic structures that represent the everyday lives of an aspirational Nazi couple: the commandant of Auschwitz, and his wife, along with their five children. Within the boundaries of their property, the Höss family lives a dreamlike lifestyle, guided by the ideals of the Artaman League, an anti-urban, agrarian movement that promotes respect for the natural world. Interestingly, in a memo, Rudolf, the administrator of mass crimes, expresses his outrage over what he considers to be disdain for his beloved lilacs.
Rather than examining the deeper levels of moral decay or the wider ideological foundations, Glazer’s storytelling style draws the audience into the everyday lives of the camp commander and his family using their real names. Rudolf and Hedwig, along with their staff of attendants, live in an unremarkable, well-kept multistory home that is defined by low-key austerity. A vast garden, complete with features like a small wading pool, beehives, a large greenhouse, and well-manicured flower beds tended by camp inmates, is an essential component of their home. The peaceful haven is surrounded by a high wall topped with barbed wire that provides a terrifying view of the nearby death camp buildings.
The exacting workmanship of Glazer’s directing vision is evident in the purposeful maintenance of both temporal and geographical gaps between frames. And even though his cinematography is so precise—both in the project and in his earlier film Under the Skin—there’s an organic flow that prevents it from feeling artificial. The Zone of Interest avoids visual images of brutality and is thus maybe one of the least obviously painful film portrayals of the Holocaust to date, but its influence is felt in the most subtle ways. Seen through the eyes of a vigilant and inconspicuous bystander, the camera adopts a mouselike motionlessness, painstakingly documenting the routine activities of the Höss family—from the older children’s departure for school to Hedwig’s household chores. Their conversations, which are marked by muted tones and a sense of secrecy, evoke a sense of mystery and leave viewers wondering about the meaning of their surreptitious observations. Spoken excerpts from conversations paired with historical accuracy provide unsettling perspectives on the banality of evil, best summed up by Höss’s cold-blooded analysis of the efficient operation of a suggested crematorium: “Burn, cool, unload, reload.”
The Höss family engages in healthy, bucolic activities, such as peaceful picnics by the river, which are primarily portrayed through detached mid and wide shots that lend the scenes an air of detached observation. Similarly, they enjoy peaceful days in the verdant, well-kept garden of their villa—a residence that Hedwig is extremely proud of. But noticeably out of sight from our perspective are the imposing barriers that mark the border between her beloved dahlias and roses and the industrial hell that lies beyond. But because of Johnnie Burn’s outstanding sound design, the audio environment has a visceral intensity that evokes the stifling atmosphere of the camp’s atrocities, much like the thick cloud of smoke that perpetually rises from Auschwitz’s furnace chimneys. Their proximity to these gloomy buildings acts as a sobering reminder that is grounded in historical fact.
The Unseen Horrors
As it turned out, the real Höss family, like the ones in fiction, lived inside the vast grounds of the Auschwitz complex, which covered an area of around fifteen square miles and included several camps inside what was referred to as the “Interessengebiet,” or “interest zone.” Their home was tucked away in a corner of Auschwitz I, the earliest camp, which was equipped with gas chambers, crematoria, gallows, and prisoner barracks. When Höss was captured in 1946, he testified about the good conditions his family had in Auschwitz, telling how his wife and kids had received everything they had asked for. His wife relished in her floral haven while the kids ran around. His hanging death in 1947 at Auschwitz took place not distant from the family home.
The Höss family’s well-maintained interiors, together with their clothing, have a feeling of newness and freshness. The Zone of Interest immerses viewers in the present, in contrast to many period plays that have a muted, faintly lived-in look suggestive of the passage of time. In the present moment, Höss is standing in his yard, staring at a building not far away that is a crematorium. The flames are gentle and rising, appearing to be just faint orange smudges in the sky. Meanwhile, the sounds of suffering—the wails of babies and children, the pathetic cries of women, and the echoes of gunfire—are brought by the light wind from the camp to the garden. The Höss family is unaware of these audio manifestations, which, while visibly immediate for the spectator, capture the sharp contrast between their peaceful life and the horrors taking place around them.
Burn’s incredible audio design is only one aspect of the film’s visceral effect. Composer Mica Levi, who worked with Glazer on the previous film Under the Skin, returns. His sparingly used tune, together with spooky thermal images captured in night vision, upends the peaceful normality that surrounds the Höss home. With their eerie ambiance, Levi’s compositions act as sporadic punctuations that surround the story with a sense of dread. The picture is notably framed by these sound elements, which begin with an eerie overture and transition into a calm riverbank scene before ending with what seems like a chorus of tormented souls.
The period in Glazer’s adaption is purposefully vague, but it takes place mostly in 1943, just before Höss was moved to a different camp. The Höss family’s home serves as the backdrop for the film. Glazer’s painstaking compositions, which feature stationary cameras that watch the kids play as the parents have routine talks and sometimes argue, depict the environment perfectly. Hedwig’s supervision of home matters contrasts with Rudolf’s departure for labor inside the camp. In the meantime, sporadically, hints of the horrors that lie beyond their peaceful haven appear. For example, a prisoner quietly scattering ash over the garden represents the intrusion of outside horrors into their isolated haven.
In such terrifying flashes, brought to life by Glazer’s unblinking eyes and those of cinematographer Lukasz Zal, the family is mainly unaware of the evil forces invading their home. Subtle clues, however, point to a different conclusion. Such is especially true for one of the younger Hösses, a daughter, whose sleep difficulties reflect a subconscious awareness of the chaos going on around her. Apart from this, the film also sporadically switches to a different world with black-and-white negative shots of a small child moving around earthen mounds. Her actions have a deeper symbolic meaning than words can convey, leaving the audience feeling both uneasy and comforted.
An underlying sense of unease permeates the whole film, which is skillfully created by combining sound effects, music, and subtle story points. One of the most noteworthy aspects of the situation is the way the children’s innocent play was subtly tainted by the evil specter of their father’s work, a moving example of the significant effects of living close to evil. The eerie atmosphere is similar to the extended suspense created in the notorious Under the Skin baby-on-the-beach scene, stretched to a whole feature film, making the viewing experience extremely taxing.
Art-Film Devices
Glazer skillfully uses several art-film devices in The Zone of Interest, such as narrative ellipses and long takes without interruption, to heighten the feeling of detached observation. Characters are primarily viewed from a distance and are frequently depicted in medium or long shots; close-ups are only occasionally used. Levi creates haunting symphonies that evoke the mechanized apparatus of death through their musical compositions, which punctuate the auditory landscape. Levi departs from traditional soundtracks, forgoing melodic cohesion in favor of dissonant soundscapes that emphasize everyday conversations against a background of a low, persistent machinelike hum, punctuated by evocative sounds reminiscent of train whistles, muffled gunfire, and indistinct cries.
Several liberties are taken in Glazer’s adaptation of Amis’s 2014 novel, most notably the conversion of fictionalized characters into actual historical figures, such as German SS Officer Rudolf, the longest-serving Auschwitz commandant, whose 1947 war crimes execution is a historical record. Once again collaborating with Levi, Glazer subverts the rules of traditional music by overlaying Levi’s mesmerizing, dissonant compositions over the visuals of the film, intercut with barely audible cries or shouts. The film ends with a startling orchestral crescendo that sounds like hellish torture and stays in the mind long after the credits have rolled. It serves as a menacing reminder that history’s shadow will never truly go away.
Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller give subtle but flawless performances in the crucial parts of Rudolf and Hedwig. Rudolf is portrayed by Friedel as a methodical, middle-level employee who is pedantic, has a raspy, thin voice, and a dictatorial haircut. His unflinching commitment to National Socialism has allowed him to advance quickly within the SS. In contrast, Hüller’s portrayal of Hedwig exudes a gleeful sense of entitlement as she glories in her heightened social standing, which she flaunts with the nonchalance of a cherished mink coat. Her newfound prestige is the result of cherry-picking the finest belongings of deceased Jewish inmates.
One passage of the speech, spoken to her housemaid with icy nonchalance, perfectly captures the nuance of Hüller’s performance: “I could have my husband spread your ashes across the fields of Babice.” Hüller’s delivery is deceptively casual despite the potentially fatal consequences, but it has an impact that is so strong that it leaves the audience gasping for air.
The way that Glazer handles the material as a director creates an immediate and intense sense of unease, driven by the constant fear that the story may descend into the horrific depths of the extermination chambers. Rather, the camera stays fixed on the everyday rhythms of the Höss family’s life, without the obvious political commentary or heartfelt soundtrack that is associated with commercial filmmaking. A conscious lack of ostentation is highlighted by the cinematography, which is characterized by a quiet flow aside from sporadic tracking shots that underline the household’s proximity to the camp’s interior. Regardless of whether Rudolph is having talks about a camp extension with businesspeople in suits or Hedwig is giving tours of the garden, the tone is always somber, giving the story a sense of unnerving normalcy in the middle of all the horrors going on around them.
By highlighting the calm and ordinary exterior of the Höss family’s life, Glazer highlights the ubiquitous ordinariness that defines such a world—a mundanity reminiscent of what Hannah Arendt famously referred to as the “banality of evil” in her address during the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a well-known Holocaust mastermind. Rudolf and Hedwig provide the image of a typical bourgeois marriage, yet there’s something sinister about them. Rudolf gets a promotion that requires him to move, but Hedwig doesn’t want to leave their comfortable existence behind. But cracks appear here and there, upsetting the calm exterior. During one such incident, Hedwig secretly dons a fur coat that was taken from a prisoner and withdraws into solitude beforehand. It is a gesture that suggests she is aware of her transgression and is trying to hide it.
Smoke and Shrieks
Other hiccups in the story include the black, menacing clouds of smoke and the shrieks that frighten one of the Höss kids. Glazer’s use of multiple eerie black-and-white scenes showing a girl or young lady surreptitiously distributing apples throughout the camp at night—presumably for the benefit of the inmates—catches particular attention. When it is later revealed that the interludes are outsiders, they contrast sharply with the rest of the film in terms of both tone and visual appeal. The only examples of resistance and selflessness in the story, such pictures were taken with a thermal imaging camera and a discordant soundtrack. But despite the benevolent overtones, what grabs attention isn’t only the woman’s isolated deeds; rather, it’s the artistic audacity and breathtaking effect of these scenes.
The Zone of Interest pitches itself as a clear-cut, brutal story told through film. Scene every scene, Glazer painstakingly emphasizes how ordinary the characters’ lives are, avoiding overt narrative, dramatic musical cues, and close-ups meant to provoke strong feelings. Notably missing is a hero along the lines of Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist made famous in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Schindler’s List, for his actions in rescuing many Jews during the Holocaust. Spielberg’s portrayal has drawn criticism, especially for emphasizing a non-Jewish protagonist. Such choice of subject matter reflects mainstream cinema’s preference for manufactured resolutions or semblances of optimism in the face of unfathomable tragedy, as well as filmmakers’ reluctance to confront the full extent of the horrifying banality of the Holocaust.
Glazer dives deep but treads carefully, refusing to try to make sense of or explain the unfathomable horror of the Holocaust. A standout performance comes from Glazer’s depiction of Rudolf and Hedwig, who represent Nazi philosophy rather than espousing it and act as anchors for the film’s central themes. Their extremely conceited behavior and blatant joy in using their position of authority form the basis of the film’s plot. The story implies that they represent millions of common Germans, or even individuals globally, who were so preoccupied with their interests that they failed to notice the horrors taking place around them, lost in everyday life as their neighbors perished. They are positioned as villains because, as Hedwig reminds Rudolf in a crucial scene, they are leading the life they have always desired. As with many mainstream and independent film stories, the film centers on its adversaries, creating an attraction to their characters that overshadows the misery of their victims, which is reduced to background noise.
Glazer goes beyond simple narration in The Zone of Interest, utilizing art-film traditions to provide a unique perspective from which the story is told. Essential to its appeal is the defined structure created by Glazer’s directing decisions, which provide leeway and give the encounter a disquieting atmosphere without crossing the line into overly terrifying territory.
Such standards can create a noticeable mental distancing effect, and they may serve as a medium for criticism—which is the purpose for which they are employed. Moreover, they emphasize the filmmaker’s creative credentials, however subjectively, and signify a degree of seriousness, refinement, and skill with a relatively specialized vocabulary of cinema. The aforementioned customs identify the film as different from the norm by indicating a shift from popular culture meant for a large audience, fostering a sense of uniqueness and exclusivity.
Additionally, they serve as observable indicators of excellence that are pleasing to both spectators and filmmakers. In the end, they become the main focus of a meaningless film, highlighting its focus on aesthetic devices rather than in-depth thematic analysis.
Bibliography
- Bentley, A. (2024). Nazi-themed film The Zone of Interest powerfully shows banal side of evil. CultureMap Houston.
- Hornaday, A. (2024). ‘The Zone of Interest’: Inside the banality of evil, on-screen and off. The Washington Post.
- Iqbal, R. (2024). The Zone of Interest review: Unsettling Holocaust drama on the ordinariness of evil. The Federal News.
- Lane, A. (2023). “The Zone of Interest” Finds Banality in the Evil of Auschwitz. The New Yorker.
- Wilkinson, A. (2023). The year’s scariest horror film is The Zone of Interest. Vox.
