Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it snagged the Grand Prix. The film recently won Best International Feature and Best Sound at the Oscars. It comes a decade after Glazer’s previous film, “Under the Skin,” and has been one of the most talked-about films of 2023. A loose adaptation of Martin Amis’s eponymous book, “The Zone of Interest,” is an excursion into the very heart of darkness.
Glazer generously reimagines the text and freely adapts it into a film packed with icy formal command. It is a radical, daring departure from the standard issue Holocaust drama, breaking generic templates and expectations to startling, frightening effect. Glazer refuses to view the events depicted as some sort of period exhibit, tucked away into the untouchable past, instead he brings a sharp insistence on their capacity to erupt even anytime in the present moment.
There is no sheltering distance from the past. Every one of us is indicted and made to feel uncomfortable in the relentless glare of the film’s gaze. The viewer isn’t allowed to feel safe in any pristine, guilt-free morality, as the current news of the barbarity in Gaza and the consequent apathy rings eerily uncanny notes with what the film depicts.
The Zone of Interest (2023) Movie Summary & Plot Synopsis:
The film begins with a siren-like score slowly droning over a black screen. As the music by Mica Levi washes over us, we are forced to sit in complete darkness and wait it out. After several minutes, darkness finally seeps out to reveal a blindingly bright summer day. A tranquil picture is painted of a family with several kids out on a picnic. The family eventually returns home, the parents kiss the kids good night, and the lights are turned off. The parents talk of their lives, the wife wistfully longing to go back to a beloved vacation place.
Gradually, we learn this is Commander Rudolf Hoss and his family. Rudolf (Christian Friedel) oversaw the construction of one of the biggest concentration camps housing millions of targeted Jews in Nazi Germany. Events depicted unravel in Auschwitz, situated in Nazi-occupied Poland. The regularity of the Hoss family’s lives is juxtaposed with the horrors they collude in and from which they actively turn their gaze away. The family is simply not bothered or interested in anything that’s happening across the wall.
Glazer crafts the narrative through a dense assemblage of aural suggestions that establish the horrors going on in the camp that is located right next to the Hoss house. The sound design is loaded with cues of the prisoners’ cries, bullets being fired, and lashing. But the Hoss family stays emotionally removed from the sounds that creep in. To them, it’s unwanted noise devoid of anything that can emotionally move them. So even as the wife, Hedwig (Sandra Huller), applies lipstick and tries on a dress picked from one of the Jewish prisoners, she has no response to the aurally permeating anguished cries. The family makes merry with a pool on their lawn. Hedwig tends to a huge garden she has cultivated. She prides herself on being the ‘Queen of Auschwitz,’ which is how Rudolf addresses her at one point in the narrative.
When Rudolf informs her that he is being transferred, she seethes with fury. She refuses to be plucked out of the idyllic life and the house she has nurtured for her and the kids. She tells him he can go to his new posting, but she wishes to stay back. The kids, too, are inured to the violence they hear. They can see the chimney smoke billowing as they make merry. They can hear the desperate cries of torture, but they have learned how to mute that out.
Then, there are the infrared scenes at night that show a young Polish girl who leaves apples for the prisoners. She is of the Polish resistance, she and her family not subscribing to the Nazi philosophy. Although they cannot overtly articulate their dissent, they courageously challenge the status quo, as the Polish family allows the young girl to risk doing selfless acts at night. They represent the rare non-conforming voices who quietly and valiantly did their bit to help out and defy in whichever way they could.
The Zone of Interest (2023) Movie Ending Explained:
What Happens to Rudolf?
At his new office, Rudolf phones Hedwig and tells her how he was thinking of a possible gassing operation while he was at an event. As he descends the stairs and looks across the hallway and directs his gaze at the camera, the film cuts to the present, with early scenes of cleaning at the Auschwitz museum. There are exhibits all around standing as a testament to the horrors that happened.
Rudolf retches suddenly. Although he has been having health issues, the retching has been intensely argued and discussed. I’d think he is disgusted at what he can imagine the Jews being memorialized while his and other Nazi contributions would be wholly derided and shamed. That his victims would be the one to receive honours in the future, instead of his ‘heroic’ deeds of extermination, induces ample disgust in him. The film cuts to black, with Mica Levi’s haunting infernal score returning to boom. It sounds like we are plunged into an ambient scene of hellish suffering and there is not a chance of escape.
The Zone of Interest (2023) Movie Themes Analyzed:
Apathy and Indifference to Cruelty and Injustice
The Zone of Interest (2023) is not merely a film; it’s a brutal mirror reflecting the abyss of human apathy. It’s a cinematic punch to the gut, jolting viewers from the comfortable numbness that allows atrocities to fester in the shadows. The film dismantles the illusion of moral superiority, shattering the complacency of a clear conscience.
Beyond mere horror, The Zone of Interest compels us to confront the insidious evil that lurks within the human condition: our collective indifference. It probes the uncomfortable truth of our desensitization to violence and injustice. We become complicit not only through active enablement but also through a deafening silence. The film serves as a stark reminder that turning a blind eye carries a heavy weight.
The violence isn’t simply depicted; it’s woven into the very fabric of the narrative, forcing viewers to confront its agonizing reality. This unflinching portrayal serves as a wake-up call, shattering the comforting distance we often create from such horrors. The Zone of Interest compels us to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth: these atrocities are not distant echoes from history books; they are a chilling possibility in any society that allows apathy to take root.
This isn’t entertainment; it’s a call to action. The film is a stark alarm bell, its urgency impossible to ignore. It compels viewers to confront the darkness within ourselves and the world around us. It demands a critical reevaluation of what we choose to overlook, for true indifference carries a heavy price. The Zone of Interest is not just essential viewing; it’s a catalyst for introspection and a call for a more engaged and empathetic humanity.
Read More: The Zone of Interest (2023) ‘IFFI’ Movie Review: A Decentralized and Detached Look at the Mundaneness of Nazi Horror
Trailer:
The Zone of Interest (2023) Movie Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia, Letterboxd
Cast: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller
Genre: War/Crime, Runtime: 1h 46m
