The Zone Of Interest
The atrocities that took place in the multitude of Nazi concentration camps are well documented in film & television. What is less commonly explored are the men, and their families, who ran these despicable endeavours. Jonathan Glazer's new film, The Zone Of Interest, seeks to change that by focussing on the banal life of the commandant of Auschwitz.
The Zone Of Interest takes place within a family home that sits just beyond the walls of Auschwitz. Living within the shadow of one of the darkest locations in human history is deeply unnerving. However, what makes this film so eerie is the wilful ignorance of the mass genocide occurring just beyond the backyard fence.
Aside from brief glimpses of a chimney billowing smoke in the background viewers are left to use their mind's eye to envision the horrors we all know are taking place inside the camp. Where the film does thrust the grim realities upon the audience though is in the haunting score. Much of the film is without a music score, which allows the unsettlingly callous & methodically efficient dialogue to come to the fore. However, as a by-product of this, the haunting sounds of trains rumbling in, gunshots, screaming, & babies crying in the distance also seep through. It's this undercurrent, almost subversive, sense of death & despair that makes The Zone Of Interest such an unsettling film.
While The Zone Of Interest is not technically a horror film it does employ some horror elements, such as; jarring synthetic sounds, long single-shot sequences & even thermal imaging for a few scenes. These techniques combined with conversations about how to make the camp a more efficient killing machine make this film incredibly grim, unsettling & haunting.
The Zone Of Interest is certainly not going to be for everyone. However, if you can overcome the revulsion of knowing what happened at Auschwitz, and elsewhere, makes this is a deeply important film for humanity.
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