The Zone of Interest – Film Review

Director – Jonathan Glazer
Writers – Martin Amis, Jonathan Glazer
Stars – Sandra Hüller, Christian Friedel, Freya Kreutzkam

In this film, we meet Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig Höss (Sandra Hüller). Rudolf was a member of the Nazi party in Germany and was the commandant of Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp for two periods during the 1940s. This film focuses on his first period but takes an unusual slant as it deals almost exclusively with his domestic life and not his operations within the camp.

The film is based on the Martin Amis novel of the same name which was published in 2014. The book used a fictionalized version of Höss called Paul Doll and involved a romance. The film is quite different from this version and gives Höss and his wife an ideal lifestyle. It focuses on simple aspects of their lives, like Hedwig’s love of gardening and visits from her family. It aims to create a rural idyll while close-by chaos exists.

This is director Jonathan Glazer’s first full-length feature since the 2013 art house, sci-fi film Under the Skin, although he has released various shorts and music videos in the intervening decade.

It is a wonderfully subtle affair that gives hints of the monstrous deeds taking place just beyond their garden walls. Much of the evidence is left to the distant sounds of gunshots or screams while the family go about their daily routines. At times, it feels like Rudolf Höss is the manager of some unknown factory and not directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians. His wife Hedwig is complicit in the acts and seems devoid of any emotion relating to the death camps. Indeed, she cares more for her garden than she does for any of the people being tortured and murdered a few metres away. The only complaint is that it may be too subtle, and we never see beyond the garden wall, but the director decided to keep them separate. The film delves into the minds of those who are capable of the most heinous of crimes.