The Zone of Interest

Written and directed by Jonathan Glazer.

Rudolph Höss (Christian Friedel), his Wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and their children live their idyllic life. However it is a life built on the horror of Höss’s job as commandant of Auschwitz. The camp walls act as Hedwig’s garden walls in which she grows flowers and the children play, seemingly immune to the noises of industrial scale murder happening behind those walls. As Rudolph’s career advances and he is promoted, Hedwig demands to stay in her dream home and above all else keep it a home in which to raise her family.

This is not a film to provide a good time. It’s more domestic documentary than “story” as it follows Höss and his families day to day lives. And it is it’s domesticity that makes it work. It’s the normality of how mass nurder is such a normal part of life that is the films horror.

A couple who have done well for themselves, a big house, children running and playing, wife entertaining friends, tending the garden. Proud to show off her work when her mother comes to stay. He deals with his workload as though the head of a factory, handling strategic problems, dealing with his staff.

While we never see the signs and sounds of the industrial murder are ever present. Voices, shots fired, the clanking and banging of the machines of murder. In the background pillars of smoke continuously rise, steam puff’s from trains and at night the orange glow of the furnaces lights the skies. Not everyone escapes the horror, Hedwig’s mother sees it, one of the children overhears his father ordering murder.

The performances of Friedel and Hüller are excellent and chilling. But the soundscape is the true star, as the sounds of murder seep into every scene and are a constant reminder of what is really going on in these seemingly normal lives.

While not a piece of “entertainment” this is a hugely powerful film. The intertwining of industrial scale murder with domestic bliss is truly chilling. A smart piece of cinema that shows the way that seemingly normal people can treat mass murder with such scant disregard.