The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer places the commandant of Auschwitz and his family in their comfortable home next to the camp walls and the horror lives entirely in what you cannot see.
What it is about
A commandant and his family pursue domestic comfort beside the walls of Auschwitz.
The horror beyond the garden wall
The Hoss family spends their days in a beautiful garden, steps from the camp wall, and Glazer holds them in static wide shots that refuse to look away. The smoke drifts over their flowers. They have simply decided it is not their concern.
Sandra Huller plays Hedwig with the quiet certainty of a woman who has earned everything she has. There is no suppressed guilt to find, no conflict beneath the surface, and that is the film's most unsettling argument. The banality of evil is a woman tending her garden.
Glazer removes all drama from the logistics of mass murder. An overhead shot of officers planning from above reduces human catastrophe to a boardroom exercise. The film argues that genocide does not require hatred. It requires only bureaucracy and a fence.