The Zone Of Interest

A movie that you’ll carry with you.

‘The Zone of Interest’ is a 2023 historical drama from writer and director Jonathan Glazer. This movie was inspired by Martin Amis’s 2014 novel, that presents the family life and wartime role of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz.

Much of the movie is set in the Höss family home. Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller portray Rudolf Höss and his wife, Hedwig, respectively.

The opening scene presents the audience with a completely black screen, whilst an unsettling soundtrack introduces us to the nature of this movie. This is not a movie to be watched. To understand the true nature of the events that unfold, you must listen.

For much of the movie mundane domestic scenes unfold before you. And yet, these film makers have embedded this record of family life within a frame of abject horror as obscured from the audience as these characters obscure it from their own eyeline. Deprivations only half seen, and yet made entirely obvious. Entirely overlooked, and yet impossible to ignore.

Most of the narrative takes place during an idyllic warm summer. The sun beats down upon the garden of the family home, to paint the washed out colours of warm summer days. A paradise within which Mrs Höss carefully tends brightly coloured roses and entertains guests…