The Zone of Interest

The Zone of Interest

The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.

  • Released:
  • Runtime: 105 minutes
  • Genre: Drama, History, War
  • Stars: Sandra Hüller, Christian Friedel, Maximilian Beck, Daniel Holzberg, Sascha Maaz, Wolfgang Lampl, Freya Kreutzkam, Stephanie Petrowitz, Marie Rosa Tietjen, Max Beck, Johann Karthaus, Ralph Herforth, Medusa Knopf, Lilli Falk, Nele Ahrensmeier, Ralf Zillmann, Imogen Kogge, Julia Polaczek, Martyna Poznanski, Luis Noah Witte
  • Director: Jonathan Glazer
 Comments
  • dr-pribut - 23 June 2024
    Banal movie about the banality of evil
    I have a copy of "Commandant of Auschwitz" in front of me. It was written by Rudolf Hoess as an autobiography before he was executed. The introduction to this English translation was written by Primo Levi a former prisoner who survived Auschwitz.

    Like Hannah Arendt, he believes that ordinary people can do terribly evil things and not have a need to be monster. He describes the book as being devoid of all literary merit, filled with evil described in a bureaucratic manner, and that reading the text was agony. The same can be said of the movie.

    It is banal, nothing dramatic is shown, the characters are entirely uninteresting, and yet I stuck with it, hoping something of great import, pathos, or insight would show up. It never did. And watching it all was agony. The most dramatic moment was shown when the Mrs. (Frau Hoess) wants to stay in their lovely house.

    Five minutes of "The Tattooist of Auschwitz is more Moving than 1.5 hours of this boring and banal film.
  • Mike_Devine - 31 May 2024
    A haunting portrait of the mundanity of evil
    Of all the films nominated for best picture at the 2024 Academy Awards, 'The Zone of Interest' may be the most unique. While tellings (and retellings) of World War II-era stories are nothing new to cinema, the perspective featured in this film is perhaps unlike anything audiences have seen before.

    Here, we get to see the point-of-view of the Höss family as they inhabit the commandant's house adjacent to Auschwitz. It's interesting to see how this elite Nazi family is able to go about their days being mostly unbothered by the atrocities that are happening on the other side of the walls that stand between them and the camp, and their nonchalantness is palpable. Both Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller do an excellent job making the ordinariness of their characters' lives feel anything but.

    What 'Zone' does really well is relying on mundane camerawork and lots of natural sound to heighten the reality of the events onscreen. There are few moments that feel like they are throwaways and even though the family profiled here is complicit in crimes against humanity, they still manage to come off as being human - with run of the mill wants and needs.

    'The Zone of Interest' isn't the best film of the past year, but it really does stand out from the crowd due to its unique story and high-caliber technical elements.