Calling a film an “art film” these days feels more like a strike against the movie in 2023. I kinda get what they mean: being purposefully vague and aggressively showing something without telling the audience anything can be a frustrating endeavor for moviegoers, who feel ike they’re forced to think something is important because of it’s artistic prestige. In 2013 I would have definitely called Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin one of those “art films,” despite knowing that something really interesting was going on there. I had to wait 10 years, but Glazer’s graduated from “art film” to great film, with the stupendous adaptation of Martin Amis’s The Zone of Interest.
The movie adaptation puts us in the Hoss household. Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel) is a commander in the army. His assignments now send him from place to place, dealing with prisoners of war. When he’s not overseeing POW camps, he’s off base, with his wife Hedwig (Sandra Huller) and his many kids, happily enjoying their prestigious quiet noble status. Hoss is thrown for a loop though when he’s reassigned to another location, causing friction with Hedwig and the family, who are happy where they are right now.
But this is no ordinary army, family or time. This is a Nazi officer. In Germany. In 1942. Working at Dachau Concentration Camp. That important context completely reframes The Zone of Interest, especially tonally. I was constantly unnerved at how natural this completely unnatural situation was for officers like Rudolf Hoss. You can’t help but shudder as engineers debate the most efficient way furnace construction will “eliminate the refuse.” Or how Hedwig’s casual threats to her servants (Medusa Knopf) actually carry life or death sentences. Glazer’s eye for a stirring visual serves him well here, like when a strange light wakes up someone from a contented sleep, nearly causing me to dry heave with its sinister undertones. During its runtime The Zone of Interest makes you watch as if you’re about to be hit by someone with a whip, squirming in your seat scared about what you’re going to see next.
And as the movie goes on, that fear you’re feeling you realize the Rudof Hoss’s of the world felt it too. Even if they want to do the right thing, family, threat of consequences, or status keeps them from speaking up, forcing worse and worse moral sacrifices to be made for their own personal safety. I never felt sympathy for these people, but I did look long, hard, and deep inside myself, to see if I could have held a job like that. I’d like to say no, but thousands of German camp commanders might say otherwise to me, a scary thought. I probably would have done as many “flight” responses in the flight or fight strategy, hoping to keep myself in a situation that would make me sick to my stomach in private (in one of the film’s great scenes).
That these Holocaust atrocities become so tolerable is Jonathan Glazer’s greatest shock he pulls off with The Zone of Interest, as we see a part of World War II we’ve never really seen before on film. It’s a great reminder of just how easy those little day to day compromises can quickly escalate if you’re not morally vigilant, or constantly living in fear. The greatest evil done on the planet being done by ordinary people? Yikes, sleep well with that news, everyone.