The Zone of Interest – at The Phoenix with Nat, Amy and Charlotte, 11th February
I have to say I was a little nervous seeing this film as the subject matter is so intense and the images and sounds you link to Auschwitz are so indelible that you carry them with you for months. It was a hard watch in some ways, but not for the usual Holocaust film reasons.
Jonathan Glazer has done an incredible thing with eschewing all of the usual concentration camp imagery and focusing on Rudolf Höss, the Commandent and his family. These everyday people who can commit such utter atrocities. The children playing in the garden as the crematorium chimneys are seen overhead, the ability for the family to love their home while hearing hellish noises around them and the utter calm efficiency of their world is stupefying.
I can really see that Glazer is using Hannah Arendt’s phrase ‘the banality of evil’ as his touchstone and created the anti-Garden of Eden in this film. These everyday monsters who practise cognitive dissonance to an extreme level are just like you and me and that is the really terrifying thing. Going home to play with and read to my own children was an odd experience after this film.
The new filming techniques, where multi cameras are used to film in a lifelike way, really help create the realism of this world to make it even more chilling. The other key film aspect is the incredible use of sound with the constant noises of the camp seeping in to their life, which we hear but they don’t seem to.
I won’t be watching it again in a hurry, but very glad I did.
Harry's homemade film MA 