The Zone of Interest

Well, this was a tough watch. Jonathan Glazer's fourth feature is loosely based on the Martin Amis novel of the same name and deals with the life of Rudolph Höss and his wife, Hedwig. On the surface, the story is a prosaic suburban tale of family life, scattered with the mundanity of visits from family and friends, birthday parties, gardening and troubles at work. The crucial difference is that Höss's work is as camp commandant at Auschwitz, their family home located just over the wall.

Rudolph and Hedwig are played with cold nonchalance by Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller. To all outward appearances, these two are a somewhat dull couple, with a brood of kids doing kid things, but their 'secret' isn't hidden at all. One early scene shows a bag of appropriated clothes being divvied up between the house staff. It's clear this booty had been taken from Jewish prisoners. There's a discussion between Hedwig and her friends about how one of them found a diamond in a tube of toothpaste. Hedwig lucks upon lipstick in a fur coat pocket. This is all fair game for them. 

The 'action' never strays into the actual camp, keeping the horrors at arm's length, though the smoke from the furnaces, the shouts from the guards and the gunshots are evident. When Rudolph is briefly transferred, we get to witness some high level bureaucracy in meetings about the Hungarian transportations. He also attends a swanky Nazi shindig, but as he tells Hedwig on the phone, he didn't speak to many people as he was distracted by imagining how he'd deal with exterminations in a room of that size. Very high ceilings, you see. Just one of many moments that leave mouths agape. 

The scenes of family life are reminiscent of those in Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon (Friedel also appears in this). In fact, The Zone of Interest could be seen as a logical endpoint to Ribbon - the children of that film could easily have grown into Rudolph and Hedwig. Their matter-of-fact attitude is both shocking and believable - this must have been the default position of many people for such atrocities to have been committed with this level of control and detail. 

The only sliver of humanity we get is from a local girl who, in stark thermal imaging, hides apples and pears around the prisoner work areas. And in a supremely effective thread, Hedwig's visiting mother slowly becomes aware of the enormity of their actions and unassumingly takes her leave. The scene of Hedwig finding the note from her mother, disposing of it and then icily threatening her young kitchen maid is cracking stuff. Hüller nails proud domestic beast mode. 

I can't recommend this highly enough. It's not enjoyable as such but it leaves its mark and stays with you. Quietly brilliant filmmaking.

The Zone of Interest is screening at UWA Somerville from Jan 29 - Feb 4 as part of the Perth Festival.

See also: 

As mentioned above, there are similarities to Haneke's The White Ribbon (2009), and Glazer already has another classic in his locker in Sexy Beast (2000).