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Written by: Jonathan Glazer, Martin Amis (based on the novel by)
Directed by: Jonathan Glazer
Starring: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller, Johann Karthaus
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer
Plot
Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden beside the camp.
Verdict
You've seen movies from this time period about this subject, but this finds a new way to approach it. Instead of showing us the horrors and making it a spectacle, the drive behind this movie is what it doesn't show us but is present in every scene. There's a contract with what Höss's family has and how they live with what's just beyond the wall. In nearly every scene we hear the crematorium and see the smoke. Instead of showing us malicious villains, we see people that lived next to these horrors and did nothing, proud of their nice house and garden. That's more insidious than any horrors we could have seen.
Watch It.
Review
There's a detachment in every scene. I don't know if it's because I know the subject, but I think it's also the way this is filmed. This house is a beautiful artifice covering something dreadful. In the first scene we see Rudolf (Christian Friedel) and Hedwig Höss's (Sandra Hüller) family playing outside and later in their nice house. Their expansive garden is walled from the outside. It's not outright stated what's going on, but it's easy to deduce. As a viewer that makes this uncomfortable. Rudolf reviews a new crematorium in his office that's more efficient. We see the wife brought a fur coat. She tries it on, admiring herself in the mirror, but we know from where that coat came. The big thing is what we don't see. We get these tranquil scenes of this couple and their children, but there's no mention of what's just next door, just past the wall. So many scenes are outside and you see the smoke in the sky. You hear the hum of the furnaces. In the distance is a guard tower and barbed wire at the top of the wall. How do you live there and ignore that?
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| Christian Friedel plays Rudolf Höss |
Hedwig's mother comes to stay with the family. She's impressed with the house, but she lies awake at night hearing screams outside, the roar of the furnace, and the light from the furnace brightening her room.
The entire movie takes place in or around the Höss house. We never see the concentration camp, and it's right next door. That's the point of this movie, and the decision not to show it has a huge impact. It imbues an extra layer of callousness to everything that happens in the house.
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| Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller plays Rudolf, Hedwig Höss, |
The ending of this has such an impact. It's absolutely harrowing. During that sequence we see Rudolph start to retch as he's leaving an event. After a jump cut, we see him leaving again and he doesn't retch. We wanted him to. As a viewer we wanted this guy to feel bad, to feel some kind of remorse. He didn't. He never did. We're teased with Rudolph finally acknowledging what he did, even if it's minor, but it's a fake out. What happened at the camps is terrible, but it perpetuated because of apathy, because of people like the Höss's that turned a blind eye just so they could live in their dream house.
The movie never explains what "The Zone of Interest" means, but the Germans called the Auschwitz camp and the surrounding area the "interest zone" to downplay the atrocities that happened there. If you dress up the name and build a wall, it's easier to ignore, easier to tell yourself that the personal benefits outweigh the crimes committed. Just like the movie lies to the viewer for that one scene to make us think Rudolph has any conflict over what he's done, he and his family lie to themselves about what's really going on. It's clear Rudolph and his family aren't ignorant of what's happening. Just as we don't see the camp, we can't claim ignorance that we didn't know it was there.
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