"The Zone of Interest" by Jonathan Glazer (2023)

 

Well, this was unusual. And heavy enough to put you in a coma.

Because my other half loves to read and watch everything about the Holocaust, it was inevitable that eventually we will go to cinema to see this - I made a point of not reading anything about it so I will have no preconceptions or expectations, I was totally tabula rasa and even prepared to suffer trough German movie with Dutch subtitles (at this point I am fluent enough in Dutch to actually follow the subtitles without problem). We went on a afternoon projection and apparently this movie is so successful that there was much more audience than I expected, evening projections must be packed.

First we encounter a family picnicking along the river - cleverly, we see them only in a swimwear and witness their bickering, family like any family in the world. Boys are splashing in the water, girls are screaming, mother says follow me this way. Its when the clothes are on, that you realise this is a family of Nazi officer and his household is served by some shadowy, terrified staff. Everything about the house is otherwise neat - there is a beautiful garden, rooms are spacious, everything is very clean and polished, there is even a happy dog barking around. The mother-in-law arrives for a visit and here we find out that this is not originally house of this family, because she is very surprised and delighted with such an opulence - if the family lived here before, she would not be so surprised. Eventually she cannot help but notice the big chimneys and smoke just across the barbed wire fence - there are sounds of shots, people screaming, there are fires and smokes on the other side. Slowly in dawns on bot her and the audience that there is a concentration camp just across the wall - in fact this is Auschwitz and the head of this family is no other but Rudolf Höss (real-life commandant of Auschwitz) - the mother in law is so horrified with what she witnesses, that she leaves the house without even saying goodbye and the note she left behind is unceremoniously tossed in the fire - her daughter has no such scruples and all she cares about it staying in this beautiful house, even when her husband is promoted and sent elsewhere. 

The strongest twist in this movie is that it looks at Auschwitz from a completely new perspective - focusing on a Nazi commandant and his family, not showing anything from a concentration camp but we can hear the sounds - shots, yelling, people screaming in pain, we can see the smoke and fire coming out of the enormous chimneys just above the walls surrounding the house where family lives. Somehow not seeing it but only hearing it makes it even more oppressive, even more ominous. Does the family feels anything about their role? The wife is clearly besotted with the house and the luxury, she has no doubts. Children are curious but learned to hide behind the curtains. And the commandant himself is focused, ambitious and strong - but there is occasional sign that he is perfectly aware of everything, even when he repeatedly retches and is disturbed to find human remains in the river where family swims. Everything about this movie is so haunting.