THE ZONE OF INTEREST is masterful in its ability to disturb and taunt about a subject well-covered in cinema, except never quite like this. I am disgusted.
Seen: Sat., Jan. 20, 2023, at Jacob Burns Film Center, Pleasantville, New York
I didn’t want to write about THE ZONE OF INTEREST. Here I am anyway, and just like the film’s main character, I must purge.
THE ZONE OF INTEREST is a disgusting film, and I am disgusted by it. It is masterful in its ability to disturb and taunt about a subject well-covered in cinema, except never quite like this. I am often ashamed to be human, a part of humanity, a species which causes and provokes and revels in the hurting of the other, often as an identity and lifestyle.
THE ZONE OF INTEREST takes place in and around the home of actual historical figures Rudolf Höss and his wife, Hedwig Höss, as they, along with their children, live their horrifying version of domestic bliss on the other side of the wall at Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp where Rudolph serves as the man in charge of a significant segment of a genocide.
The indifference to human suffering portrayed by Christian Friedel as Rudolf and Sandra Hüller as Hedwig is striking because it is indifference without effort. These are people who have long ago vacated any semblance of the mental gymnastics and cognitive rewiring required to explain away what is happening on the other side of their garden wall, which borders the place where over one million Jews and others were tortured and incinerated.
We see none of it, just like Rudolf and Hedwig, even when it is literally before their eyes.
The neurological connection between sight and perception of suffering has been burned through before our entrance into their hazy, washed-out pastel world.
The smoke rising from the crematoriums is the only visual clue we receive.
Director Jonathan Glazer got what he wanted out of me, and I can’t help but hate him for that as a viewer and love him as an admirer of his skills. Ten years between films is primarily due to his incredibly detailed (some may say obsessive) planning for THE ZONE OF INTEREST, and it is all there in what can only be called a masterpiece that ascends to that designation because of how infuriating it is to take in this film. I almost yelled at the screen.
I am less interested in discussing THE ZONE OF INTEREST for its merits as a film, however, which are many and undeniable. In addition to the chilling performance from Hüller, who gave us another unforgettable character earlier this year in Best Picture nominee ANATOMY OF A FALL (yes, Hüller is a lead in two films in this category), the usual points about cinematography, set design, etc. don’t need much attention. They are all exemplary.
What is more important to convey is how this film relates to the world we are living in while you are reading this. If you think I am about to say, “It could happen here!” I’m not.
This is not about the potential for another holocaust; it is about how the general rejection of compassion, empathy, civility, and even the most basic of manners that give society a foundation are all-pervasive in our daily lives as we watch dictators around the world, and aspiring dictators and authoritarians, some of them actual billionaire CEOs that hold the lives and livelihoods of their employees by a thread, look the other way, any other way, to justify inhumane behavior.
If there is one technical aspect of THE ZONE OF INTEREST that must be acknowledged above all else, it is the film’s sound design, which essentially functions as its own character. Glazer has described what we hear throughout as a second film that is playing off-screen, which is apt. I consider it a warning.
What you will listen to as THE ZONE OF INTEREST plays is the stuff of nightmares because while it is often faint, it plays like a subtle feeling of nausea. While you may need to strain to hear it more clearly, you can not shut it out if you choose.
When the muffled screams of torture, the distant gunshots, and the guttural cries first began, I thought I needed to quiet somebody in the theater. Was this noise part of the film? It is that unsettling.
When accompanied by several musical cues that land somewhere between brown notes and indigestion, it is not unrealistic to wonder if THE ZONE OF INTEREST may make some of its viewers physically ill. This film needs to be experienced in a theater for this reason. If the realities of the Holocaust do not fully resonate with you in any medium, as someone who has taken as much as I could tolerate as a homosexual Jew, I can’t imagine any piece of art on the horizon that will be able to shake me more than this. I am shook.
I do not believe we will ever experience anything as overt as what happens on the other side of Rudolf and Hedwig’s garden wall again. Demise will come more slowly now, as it does organically anyway, except these days, members of the human race are only distinguished by bad actors for their ability to work for the benefit of the CEO who will buy a bigger yacht with their labor. Workers will be drained of their passion for living before dying.
Like Rudolf and Hedwig, Some will offer blind loyalty to the leader with the hope of advancement and an extra day of vacation!
Is it good that the characteristics that make us individuals, and in some eyes, the subjects of ridicule, now take a back seat to our earning potential? What a sick question to ask and answer. I only write it to get it out of me.
THE ZONE OF INTEREST brought it up. As difficult as it may be, I suggest you find out what THE ZONE OF INTEREST brings up in you. — Josh Bloom, Jan. 25, 2024