The Zone Of Interest - Movie Review

Critics Score - 8

General Audience Score - 7

When it comes to movies, there are the big studio blockbuster films, movies designed to appeal to the masses, and there are many smaller, usually independent films, sometimes referred to as “arthouse” cinema. These artistic films are more niche, they’re not designed to appeal to the crowds as much and usually find an audience within only a certain demographic of the population. The filming style, pacing, production, cinematography and any number of other variables in these movies might lose a good chunk of mainstream audiences along the way. This term “arthouse”, can certainly be used in relation to the new foreign film from A24 studios coming from the UK and it’s called The Zone Of Interest. This film from director Jonathan Glazer is in spoken German and it is unsettling, disquieting, stomach turning and any other adjectives that you can think of that make you uneasy or uncomfortable. For those unaware, the film takes place during the holocaust, we visit the Auschwitz concentration camp, in a way. We’re here to uncover the events that would’ve transpired outside the walls, while unimaginable atrocities were taking place on the inside. Although not a fun time at the movies and definitely more arthouse, general audiences, critics and film lovers should take the time to watch this film, it’s not too difficult for The Zone to keep our Interest.

SYNOPSIS - The first three to four minutes of this film, we’re left in total darkness, as we’ve nothing to fix our eyes on, just a screen of pure black, our ears begin to perk up to the original score, a daunting melody that eventually softens as the film's title appears and disappears. More to come on the score and auditory aspects of the film in a moment. But we begin to hear birds chirping and finally a scene opens, a family of twelve or thirteen people are at a lakeside, spending an afternoon swimming, soaking up some sunshine and relaxing. The swimwear and atire reflects that we’ve entered the 1940’s and we’re in Poland, these German men all don the same black, high-waisted underwear style swimming trunks. We then watch Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) standing on some rocks down by the lakeside, his pale white skin contrasting the black swimwear, we notice the sides and back of his head are shaved with only a tuft of dark hair encircling the top of his head. But soon they pack up at the lake and we watch two black cars pull out onto the main road and head home in the dark of evening. As they drive away we hear the kids bickering in the backseat as children will do. We next watch as Rudolf walks through his house, turning all the lights off and then gets into bed, he sleeps in the same room but there are separate twin beds that him and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) each occupy. He lays silently in bed staring at the ceiling, the camera changes and we watch as she looks over at him from the opposite bed, five or six feet apart.

As the scene cuts, we’re taken to the next morning, a staircase to our right is obstructed from view, we hear voices of people coming down and we finally see Rudolph with a blindfold tied around his face, being led two of his sons. The three make their way outside and his boys escort him down a flight of steps, they eventually turn him around and take off his eye covering. As Hedwig says, “Happy Birthday” in subtitles, he walks over towards his family standing on the other side of a long, dark-brown, wooden canoe, his birthday present. From the exterior of the home in the daylight, we begin the to observe, as some of the camera shots continue to offer gimpses, a very high concrete wall with barbed wire around the top that mostly surrounds the back and side of the home. As Rudolph stands near his present, he takes his baby girl from his wife and sets her in the canoe and plays with his daughter a few seconds. But at this moment is when the extraordinary sound design of the movie begins to take center stage as we begin to hear the first gunshots the film exposes us to going off in the background. As the family stands around the gift, they are unaffected by the sounds. As far as sensory film experiences, a good portion of the effect created by The Zone is auditory. Rudolph must head off to work and after parting, we watch him climb onto a waiting horse and ride through a gate in the twelve to fifteen foot high wall just adjacent to the home with guards stationed nearby. Hedwig takes the baby into her flower garden and lets the baby grab at the flowers and asks her, “Would you like to smell a rose?”, again in German. We finally get a long take of a man pushing a wheelbarrow along the exterior wall, on the other side we get to see one of the long residential buildings of one of the Nazi camps. Again, while the man walks we hear a dull roaring in the background, like a furnace, metal clanking, the clinking of metal chain links hitting each other. If you’re waiting for a strong central narrative to kick in, you’ll be waiting for quite some time. This is very much a fly on the wall type of film, it’s more about the experience, the implications of what’s taking place, not a narrative story.

By and large, The Zone Of Interest is an incredible achievement in directing, Jonathan Glazer is at the helm and almost every decision he’s making from the director’s chair adds weight and precision to this striking and compelling piece of art. What Glazer has created is a cinematic experience like no other. Not a pleasant one as I’ve mentioned, but an important one, from a historical perspective. This work will almost assuredly get Glazer recognized at the Academy Awards, his vision for this film is a revolution as he recontextualizes a well known event from history in a way that makes your head spin from sheer bewilderment. If you’re familiar with Glazer’s prior film Under The Skin and it’s abstract filmmaking style, you’ll notice some through lines with the cinematography from Łukasz Żal as Zone has a few night vision/infrared camera sequences that he utilizes. But it’s not until later in the film that we realize what the purpose of these different lenses is for and how the sequences are connected. Although the direction is the true triumph here, the more modest screenplay written by Glazer is still a solid adaptation from the book by Martin Amis of the same name. The sound work is one of the true aspects of the film that reaches into the realm of brilliance and is responsible for so much of the dramatic effect. The original score by Mica Levi is undeniably great as well. It does maintain a lightness through portions but does kick in with some Inception style blasts that make you sit up in your chair and take note of what’s happening. Although this is more of an ensemble cast effort, both Friedel and Hüller are leading the charge of really good performances, but the work is so subtle and mundane in nature, there are no “Oscar scenes” to showcase these actors. But that’s really not the point of the film and would really only detract from the film’s main message. As I’ve described already, this film is like visiting a haunted house, the unease that something is not right creeps into your mind and leaves you with a feeling of being unsettled, at an almost subconscious level.

SUMMARY - Despite the negative aspects of the deeply troubling experience that this film leaves you with, the importance of this film begs both critics and general audiences to give it a watch. And with the fact that millions visit the Holocaust Museums in Washington D.C. and other locations every year, The Zone Of Interest for this film and it’s subject matter is bound to captivate audiences everywhere for years to come.