The Zone of Interest, a film by Jonathan Glazer, with Christian Friedel, Sandra Huller

19 August 2024

The Zone of Interest, trailer, the 2023 film by British director Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Under the Skin), explores a slightly different aspect of the World War II Holocaust, which resulted in the deaths of six million European Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp where over one million Jews were murdered, lives with his family in a house situated right beside one of the camp’s walls. With his wife Hedwig, (Sandra Hüller), the couple attempt to create what they consider to be a “normal” life for their young children.

Hedwig audaciously describes the house, and landscaped gardens, which she designed, as “paradise”, despite its proximity to the concentration camp. The family home is anything but paradise, however. The atrocities unfolding at Auschwitz may go unseen, but they do not go unheard.

There is seldom any let up in the cries of terror, the gun fire, nor the grinding of heavy metallic doors and gates constantly opening and closing. The sounds of furnaces burning, and trains ominously coming and going, are never ending. The family house may be comfortable, but discord and unease hangs heavily in the air. The Höss’ new born baby is frequently unsettled and crying, while their pet dog is almost always restless and agitated.

Paradise is the name Höss and his wife give to their denial of the horrors taking place on the other side of the wall. The Zone of Interest is a confronting and disturbing study of their dismissal. But there are cracks in the façade. Höss desperately seeks a transfer away from Auschwitz, while Hedwig pines to return to Italy, where the family once holidayed. Because try as both might, there is no turning away from the evil both know is taking place.