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(Photo Manipulation by Nathan Rubin)
Unlike many films about the Holocaust, “The Zone of Interest” shows the daily life of a Nazi. The film focuses on the leader of the camp, Rudolf Hoess (Christian Friedel). Not once does the viewer see the faces of any Jews, nor those of the infamous Nazis recorded in history, such as Adolf Hitler, Adolf Eichman or Heinrich Himmler. Instead, the audience watches Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) try to maintain the “idealistic” life they have created, beyond the walls of Auschwitz.
The German feature film is based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis. Jonathan Glazer directed the film and it was distributed by film studio A24. “The area of interest” debuted at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where cattle the Grand Prix and hit Atlanta theaters on January 19. The film was nominated for “Best Film – Drama” grant at this year’s Golden Globes.
The “area of interest” never ventures into the concentration camp itself, but focuses primarily on the house the Hösses built, where they entertain guests and raise their children. However, in the background of almost every scene, we hear gunshots and screams echoing from the death camp next door. This does not discourage anyone in the Höss family, who ignore the soundscape of the genocide and prefer to continue with their lives.
Halfway through the film, Rudolf reveals to Hedwig that the Nazi leadership ordered him to move to another city. When she is left searching for an answer to this news, Hedwig insists that she and the children will remain in the house.
“This is the life we always dreamed of,” he says in this scene.
Perhaps the most sinister character is Hedwig. Unlike Rudolf, whose main goal is to complete the objectives assigned to him, Hedwig is happy to seize the fur coats taken from the Jews in the concentration camp and shamelessly calls herself the “Queen of Auschwitz.”
The only person who seems to notice the chaos occurring beyond the Höss compound is Hedwig’s mother, Elfryda (Medusa Knopf), who visits the family to see what her daughter’s life has become.
Elfryda first realizes the sobering reality of the extermination camp when she begins coughing from the ashes she breathes from the camp’s crematoria. In the end, she can no longer bear to stand by Auschwitz as she hears people desperately calling for help and sees towering flames rising from the crematorium. Unwilling to tell her daughter that she believes what Rudolf is doing is wrong, she leaves in the middle of the night, leaving only a letter. Aside from Elfryda, the entire film focuses on the family’s willingness to turn a blind eye to what they hear, see and smell in the death camp. Elfryda represents the bystanders of the Nazi regime, who knew the Holocaust was wrong but still refused to openly oppose the genocide.
Although “The Zone of Interest” is classified as a drama, what is left to the imagination is horrifying. Towards the end of the film, a disturbing sequence of still flowers is shown, but crying, screams, and gunshots can be heard in the background. Glazer uses this juxtaposition to show that even in the darkest days of history, most people didn’t care and would simply prefer not to be bothered.
Glazer is able to show the inhumanity of the Höss family by using zero camera movements throughout the film and employing many long shots from afar. In this way, he makes us feel distant from the characters whose emotions we understand but with whom we should not sympathize.
Filmed in almost completely natural light and with a muted color palette, the film makes it clear that it is about ordinary people acting evil. Glazer’s point is that the only thing stopping us from becoming monsters is our choices; It is not something within us that determines whether we will be noble or evil.
The film ends with a preview of the cleanup of the current Auschwitz museum. The museum, like “The Zone of Interest”, is here to remind us of the tragedy of Auschwitz but also to warn us about the evil that humans can and still create. The film then cuts back to Rudolf vomiting, pulling himself together, and finally walking down the stairs into the darkness.
Spencer Friedland (26cC is from Long Island, New York and is the Emory Wheel News Editor. He is majoring in Philosophy, Politics and Law and minoring in Film. Spencer is also part of the Franklin Fellows program at Emory.
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