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The Zone of Interest Movie Review

The Zone of Interest is a 2023 German historical drama film directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Christian Friedel and Sandra Huller. It is the best film released in 2023.

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“The life we enjoy is very much worth the sacrifice“

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Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden beside the camp in this truly fresh and original take on the often filmed WWII drama. I’d had huge expectations for this movie judging by its incredible premise and I am happy to say that the execution was just as brilliant and that this is not just the greatest picture of the year, but also one of the best World War II films of all time.

This film is not for everyone. It is very much an arthouse drama, but one that was executed so incredibly well on all fronts that I was blown away by it even if I myself don’t usually tend to gravitate toward this type of artsy features. But the power of this particular story is undeniable and hopefully it affects viewers enough to at least make them think about their complicity in their own lives as all of us to a certain degree are complicit about some injustice in our surroundings.

Whereas the vast majority of WWII-themed films tend to focus on actually depicting the many atrocities that the Nazis committed, what Glazer did here was exactly the opposite – ignore the horrors and show the story through the perspective of this family, thus making us the viewers also feel as if we are turning a blind eye, making for such a disorienting, heart-wrenching viewing experience unlike no other.

Dissimilar to another war-themed film that was a huge blockbuster this year and had nothing of substance to say, The Zone of Interest has a tight, minimalist on the surface script, but one that is so thought-provoking and sophisticated in its implications. It shows us that Nazis were humans as we have already known, but by depicting how happy their family lives were, the movie effectively posits that our families are just the extensions of ourselves, so we cannot really judge a person morally by how well they treat their family members. It is much more complex than that.

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At a time when Israel is committing unprecedented for this century atrocities against the Palestinians and the world is disturbingly turning a blind eye to these events, this film comes at the perfect time to remind us all of our complicity and callousness about other peoples and cultures. It’s by far the most relevant and timely film of the year and one of the most important movies of the century so far.

Christian Friedel is very effective in the role of the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss. Upon reading about him, I got to even more appreciate this performance and characterization that fitted the callousness and coldness of the real-life person. But the highlight of the film is Sandra Huller, an actress who had one hell of a year with this and ‘Anatomy of a Fall’.

She plays Rudolf’s wife Hedwig, a woman who only thinks about herself, her family and retaining the house that they live in, a house that is so perfect that it felt as if it was coming from a fairy tale, immaculately contrasting the horrors of the nearby concentration camp. Huller is very believable and terrific as this cold, highly unlikable woman and in the first half she was the main character of the movie that was at that point in its best stretches in large part because of her great presence.

Though I do get the criticism about the third act going away from the house and being somewhat abrupt, the ending itself was so emotionally effective and just perfect as we got to see the present-day museum of the site and that was so well edited with the commandant walking around the area in the past. It’s an eerie ending to one immensely disturbing film that will undoubtedly stay with me long after seeing it.

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Technically, The Zone of Interest is a masterpiece and a pure work of art. An Oscar snub means that a film was not nominated and it could and should have won in said category and that is what happened with this year’s cinematography slate. It’s a terrible snub by the Academy that doesn’t sit well with me. Anyway, the use of numerous fixed cameras and a refusal to include close-ups led to a picture that looks different than the vast majority of films released today with its prescient point of view. Cinematographer Lukasz Zal lets us as viewers literally inhabit this house in a film that felt astonishingly grounded in reality and lived in.

The production design also deserves a lot of praise as this house was after all painstakingly recreated from the real life house in question. Getting to watch this family enjoy their Aryan dream to the fullest in the house, garden and gorgeous natural surroundings made for such a horrifying viewing experience when contrasted with the sounds and sights of the nearby camp that they continually and steadfastly refuse to acknowledge. The lack of an overwhelming score for the most part was a terrific choice as it makes every horrible sound from the camp heard, considered and recorded in your mind. The little score that we get is fittingly suspenseful.

The Zone of Interest is impeccably well edited, paced and structured. The infrared scenes with the girl helping the prisoners were not only highly artistic, but also wonderfully human and optimistic, functioning as a necessary respite from all the evil and coldness in the air. Jonathan Glazer is a very interesting filmmaker with his observations on humanity being particularly unforgiving and complex, but this is the first time where I truly loved his movie as ‘Under the Skin’ did not work as well as it could have. But with this film he has become a genuine auteur as it featured the most visionary and accomplished filmmaking of the year.

Extra credit should also be given to Glazer for writing the script. He wrote this script more than he adapted it as the original source material is apparently quite different and much less probing than his more sophisticated screenplay that favors observations, metaphors and strong imagery to comment on its themes more so than typical plot points that we’d come to expect from these period pieces. There is no unnecessary conflict in this drama whatsoever, which was a breath of fresh air. You are just invited to stay with this horrible family for a while and you are also asked to examine your own behavior, finding that all of us have much more in common with the perpetrator than the victim. And that is the true power of this film – to makes us think and acknowledge the worst tendencies of all humans, including ourselves.

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