While he may only direct sporadically, each one of Jonathan Glazer’s films is a masterful examination of a specific subject, handcrafted by a filmmaker with a keen vision and an even more intriguing sense of philosophical virtue. His fourth feature film, as well as the first film he has made in nearly a decade, is The Zone of Interest, in which he explores a few months in the life of an ordinary German family, composed of a working man and a dedicated housewife, both trying to build a life for themselves and their children – with the caveat being that their home is situated on the outskirts of Auschwitz, and the main character is Rudolf Höss, known as one of the most barbaric and hateful commanders in the Nazi Party, and his wife Hedwig, who is relentlessly supportive of her husband and his efforts to rise to become a powerful political force. Inspired by both his visits to the notorious death camp, as well as the novel of the same title by Martin Amis, Glazer crafts a complex and deeply unsettling depiction of a different side of humanity, one that is harrowing and darker than any of us could ever imagine, and confronts the audience with some harsh truths, ones that are drawn not only from the past, but also present events, almost as if he is warming us that evil continues to persist in our world, and the story he is telling here is only one of a myriad that show the corruption of the human condition that has taken place over time. A tremendously challenging but profoundly moving film, The Zone of Interest is an astonishing achievement, and while it may veer towards being an acquired taste, it does tend to have quite a timeless quality that should resonate with all viewers, particularly those who have an interest in exploring the past and its undeniable relationship to the future, especially in terms of some of the most fundamental issues that have been confronted with over time.

Glazer has always been driven to tell stories that are built from simple premises, which he crafts into daring and provocative genre projects that challenge the nature of artistic expression through cinema. Considering he had already amassed one of the most acclaimed careers as a director of music videos and short-format filmmaking even before he stepped behind the camera of a feature film, it is obvious that he has always been driven by a sense of challenging conventions in unique and daring ways. The Zone of Interest has a very straightforward concept, which is to explore the daily routine of the residents of the houses that stood on the outskirts of a place that caused nothing but suffering and despair, to the point where even the very mention of the location is enough to darken any conversation, appropriately so. We don’t often think about the everyday lives of people who are essentially evil incarnate – usually, we focus on the known actions of the people responsible for the suffering, viewing them as maniacal, deeply evil individuals – and while this is certainly true and never disputed by Glazer, what he intends to explore is the fact that many of these men were husbands and fathers alongside their careers, and the decision to craft a film that focuses on one family, in particular, was certainly compelling enough to pique our curiosity, especially with such a dedicated and artistically-daring director at the helm. There is something very dark about how this film navigates the ideas of exploring the trials and tribulations of a man who not only made a career out of participating in genocide, but did it with such enthusiasm and reckless abandon, one has to call into question the assertions by many former Nazis in which they state that they were “just following orders” (very rarely do we find three words that this simple but so profoundly disturbing), since it was very clear that there was some degree of pleasure garnered from this forced feeling of superiority, and Glazer intended to condense the very heart of evil into a simple narrative.

The Holocaust as a subject has been explored extensively throughout the history of art, which is entirely appropriate considering how much of the legacy left by this horrendous period is focused on the conscious effort to never forget what occurred, in the hopes of never replicating such atrocities. As a result, there wasn’t much that Glazer could do that hadn’t been done before – but this didn’t prevent him from attempting to find a new method of telling such a story, and we soon come to realize that The Zone of Interest has many intriguing ideas, each one expansive and compelling in its way, while still being adherent to the overall intentions of the story. Many similar films tend to focus on emotions and character development, either to give a voice to the victims or to further prove the sheer evil of the perpetrators. In this film, we find a different approach, whereby Glazer chooses to tell the story based less on a natural plot progression, but rather one that is driven primarily by atmosphere – there is a storyline, and it does follow a logical narrative sequence, but it almost seems as if the overall intentions behind the film were less about the details and more about establishing a specific mood.  The Zone of Interest is quite a bleak and austere film, and one doesn’t need to experience it to understand this to be true. However, it’s in this bleakness that the director manages to make some of the most impactful statements, through the process of not only removing every trace of warmth or emotion from the film (except those of revulsion, fear and morbid curiosity, since there is something very interesting about a film that looks behind the proverbial curtain of pure evil), but also preventing any sense of understanding to be given to these characters – there are many moments in which the story takes place in brightly-lit offices and the sun-baked garden around the home, but yet it feels as if every bit of light has been extinguished from this film, leaving only an unbearably tense bundle of images, each one deeply unnerving and extremely disturbing, both visually and psychologically.

One of the aspects connected to previous films on the subject is that they usually tend to be good opportunities for actors to showcase their skills, since regardless of which side of the divide their characters occupy, there is a lot of material with which they can work, often turning in some of their finest work. This is not the case with The Zone of Interest, which is seemingly uninterested in character development as a whole, or even populating the film with memorable characters that have a coherent set of qualities. This was entirely intentional, with Glazer choosing to deliberately not humanize these people, nor vilify them more than they have been already. Instead, his objective is to create a neutral, straightforward depiction of their lives, including their actions and routines, allowing the viewer to determine their relationship with these characters. Once again, we are kept at a distance throughout the film, and we never quite get to understand the psychological states of these characters, which ultimately contributes to the feeling of absolute detachment and despair that lingers over the edges of this film. The Zone of Interest is anchored by Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller, who are both doing exceptional work, despite the intentional limitations imposed on them. They’re both suitably unsettling, particularly in the portions of the film where we witness their continued attempts to normalize the atrocities occurring just beyond the boundary that separates their idyllic home from one of the most notorious places in history. The film is not designed around the performances – if anything, the actors are used as props, existing in the film in the same way as the furniture in their home, simply serving the purpose of showing their lives as a series of existential tableaux, giving glimpses into the everyday practices of people who either promote this repulsive system or simply choose to ignore it entirely. The purposeful lack of any morality in these characters makes The Zone of Interest very difficult to watch, but it proves to be extremely effective, especially in how the performances are formed from the same disquieting elements that underpin the majority of the film.

Simplicity is perhaps the most disturbing detail we find throughout The Zone of Interest, which is as sparse and unfurnished as such a film can be, which lends it a genuinely sinister and unsettling tone. The film takes place in the direct vicinity of Auschwitz – yet, we only get brief passing glimpses of the camp’s exterior, and the closest we come to seeing the atrocities being committed only metres away from the home in which this family is raising their children are through the meetings taken by Höss, as he discusses the methods of genocide with an almost casual sense of apathy – after all, it is just routine for him and his fellow commanders tasked with overseeing the camp and its doomed occupants. Glazer had the challenge of inciting this feeling of dread and despair without actually showing the actions, and to achieve this seemingly impossible task, he recruits a solid group of collaborators to assist in bringing the past to life in vivid and disturbing detail. The cinematography by NAME is extraordinary – the compositions are simple but profoundly effective, and the use of both long takes and wide shots creates a sense of detachment, especially since there are very few close-ups throughout this film, much of the action taking place at a distance, a conscious choice that comes across as Glazer making it clear that we are voyeurs, observing the daily routine of this family without actually being a part of it (although there is an argument to be made about the complicit nature of the silent observer), which is essential not only for our sanity but also the sense of isolation felt throughout this film. We never truly get to know these characters, which is the entire purpose of the story, and we even find ourselves growing quite disturbed by their general apathy, which is in turn echoed by Mica Levi’s deeply disturbing score, which is discordant and unsettling in a way that only further emphasises the distance between the story and the audience, which Glazer intentionally keeps vast to promote the unforgiving and disquieting nature of this narrative, which is perfectly serviced by the form taken by the film.

The Zone of Interest is a film designed in such a way that the profoundly inhumane is rendered as banal, and it is constructed through the process of focusing on the domestic life of people who played a role in one of the most grotesque injustices in human history, whether major or mostly inconsequential. Glazer is a fascinating filmmaker with a reputation for choosing projects that don’t only speak to him artistically, but stir a philosophical curiosity deep within him, which has led to some truly inventive and magnificently daring projects, of which this is one of the most impressive. The film is quite challenging, and we find that some of his choices while bewildering, serve a very important purpose. There is something profoundly compelling about this film and how it goes about choosing what the audience witnesses and what is kept concealed, the oscillation between bland domesticity and the foreboding feeling of terror forming a narrative tug-of-war that Glazer masterfully handles, creating a daring and provocative drama that may be impenetrable but proves to be exceptionally impactful. It takes some time to fully understand the intentions behind the film, and once we can surrender to what is being asked of us, we begin to understand the various threads that flow through the story, and how the director’s decision to craft an atmospheric experimental drama built on characters that lack moral fibre, but have been placed in a position where this lack of ethical consistency has proven to be a benefit, since it allows for the sense of moral turpitude to continue into future generations, something we witness throughout this film as this family raises their children, who are gleefully unaware of the crimes against humanity being committed on the other side of the neatly-trimmed hedges, the screams of the imprisoned intermingling with their lunchtime conversations. It’s a harsh film, a cold and clinical project that is beyond brutal, but it tells an essential story, and the unforgiving nature of the narrative, coupled with Glazer’s unique directorial approach, all works together to create a profoundly complex drama that may look at familiar material but proves that there are still numerous ways to tell such a story.