It is difficult to articulate the experience of watching “The Zone of Interest.” It is not to be enjoyed, but to be appreciated, understood and contemplated. Aptly, as a movie taking place during World War II, it is incredibly disturbing, but not in the ways one might expect.
It is a picturesque day in a picturesque countryside villa. The children are swimming in the stream, a mother is rustling through the flower garden and a father is marveling at his idyllic family life. This rural brood’s paradisal lifestyle is imbued with a sinister truth: it resides directly next to an Auschwitz concentration camp and the patriarch is commanding officer Rudolf Höss. The sounds of war and barbarous acts happening next door are heard in the background, which are ignored by the characters throughout the film.
The film performed well at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, but I was able to see it when it made its way to the New York Film Festival. The Alice Tully Hull screening was followed by a Q&A with the director, British filmmaker, Jonathan Glazer, and the two leads, Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel. Glazer, whose most notable previous work is “Under the Skin,” does not sensationalize the atrocities or deliver a biopic. Instead, he relied on the impeccable work of sound designer Johnnie Burn, who developed the horrifying bed of background noise that accompanies most of the film. There is also a score composed by Micachu which is used sparingly, but brilliantly, for effect.
It is difficult to think of a film that is more unsettling than this one. Höss is played by Friedel alongside Hüller as Hedwig, his wife — who also starred in festival favorite “Anatomy of a Fall” this year. The cold indifference that is portrayed is jarring. Höss casually chats to some of his colleagues over a cup of coffee, as they work through the details of how they will construct the gas chambers to murder the most number of people at once. Hedwig and some of the other mothers sit around and boast about the new dresses and jewelry that they got from the Jewish victims whose belongings and lives were stripped from them. The film purposely illustrates how casual and commonplace these conversations were, easily forgotten, an insignificant part of everyday life.
Hüller’s performance as Hedwig is marked by a physicality that demonstrates her restlessness. With all of the characters, but most memorably hers, there is a lack of humanity that is always present. She never seems to experience pleasure or gentleness and rarely stops moving, in search of a constant distraction. It is almost as though if she were to pause, she would have to confront her own depravity, which would simply be too inconvenient.
Glazer bravely tackles frightening truths about the human condition and challenges his viewers to examine whether they would recognize evil if they saw it. Evil appears distressingly familiar. While the film refuses to empathize with the characters, it ruminates on the ways that people can become desensitized, how wealth incentivizes chosen ignorance and how people cushion their lives to avoid having to acknowledge the suffering of others.
It is not merely a World War II movie. It is a singular work of art that illustrates the way the world is right now, and the way it has always been.
“The Zone of Interest” will be distributed by A24 and is expected to see a limited theatrical release starting December 15th.