The Zone Of Interest (12A)

Commandant Rudolf Hoss and wife Hedwig raise their five children, Klaus, Heidetraud, Inge-Brigitt, Hans-Jurgen and baby Annegret, less than 100 metres from the walls of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Local women help Hedwig to run the household. When Nazi high command decides to transfer Rudolf to Oranienburg, Hedwig faces the reality that she may have to relinquish her kingdom.

LondonNet Film Review

The Zone Of Interest (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

Taking its title from the euphemistic phrase used by Nazi officers to refer to the immediate area surrounding the Auschwitz concentration camp, The Zone Of Interest is an unsettling, experimental portrait of Nazi commandant Rudolf Hoss that humanises one of the men responsible for Hitler’s Final Solution in German-occupied Poland. Jewish filmmaker and artist Jonathan Glazer spent 10 years nurturing the project to fruition, gaining permission to recreate the Hoss family’s two-storey stucco villa from archive photographs just outside the camp’s perimeter…

Attention to detail is evident in every disorienting frame, intentionally focusing on the mundane day-to-day life of the commandant and his kin while atrocities unfold out of sight but not out of mind. Immersive sound design conveys gun shots and screams on the other side of walls adorned with coils of barbed wire, Hoss children frolic in a swimming pool while plumes of smoke chug above treetops in the distance from a train carrying new arrivals, and crematorium chimneys cast a red glow through the night.

Atrocities are never depicted explicitly on screen and Glazer’s camera ventures inside the camp just once, fixated on the commandant’s face as black smoke swirls around him. The script orients us with a sickening jolt at roughly the midway point when the Hoss’s house-proud wife jokes that her husband calls her “the queen of Auschwitz” then giggles at her apparent good fortune.

Commandant Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel) and wife Hedwig (Sandra Huller) raise their five children, Klaus (Johann Karthaus), Heidetraud (Lilli Falk), Inge-Brigitt (Nele Ahrensmeier), Hans-Jurgen (Luis Noah Witte) and baby Annegret, less than 100 metres from the walls of the camp. Local women help Hedwig to run the household and in one quietly chilling scene, the wife rewards their diligence by allowing them to sift through a sack of silk lingerie taken from newly arrived prisoners. “Choose something you like,” she coos matter of factly.

Cruelty bubbles beneath the surface and Huller’s stunning performance captures the icy detachment of her matriarch, who reacts angrily to news that Rudolf is being transferred to Oranienburg and she may have to relinquish her kingdom. A meek housemaid bears the brunt of one threat. “I could have my husband spread your ashes across the fields of Babice,” whispers Hedwig between mouthfuls of cooked breakfast.

Nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, The Zone Of Interest is episodic in structure, punctuated by nightmarish sequences captured using thermal night vision. Glazer’s impeccable direction reminds us of the Nazi death machine’s horrifying efficiency and composer Mica Levi’s low, rumbling score intensifies the creeping dread. Ignoring trauma offers no escape.

– Kim Hu