Movie Review: In Harrowing ‘Zone Of Interest, The Holocaust's Evils Are Cloaked In Mundanities
It's just a woman putting on a fur coat and trying on lipstick alone in her room. It's just a few friends discussing toothpaste orders over coffee in the kitchen. It is simply a housewife showing off her new garden and children's pool, or a father taking his children fishing in the river.
The important context is that these scenes take place near a stone wall of the Auschwitz gas chambers and crematorium. It is their lack of foundation that makes them evil – “the ugliness of evil,” as Hannah Arendt so aptly put it. In his subtle and depressing film Zone of Interest, writer-director Jonathan Glazer finds a way to convey evil without portraying the horror itself. But even when it escapes our eyes, fear penetrates our senses in other, deeper ways.
How do you start photographing the Holocaust? This question has plagued filmmakers for eight decades. Attempts to humanize horror often ignore the scale of the genocide. Efforts to seek justice on an unimaginable scale can ignore human suffering.
Glazer chose a different path. Incredibly filmed on location, the starting point is an ordinary German couple trying to build a wealthy life for their family. It happened in Auschwitz. It concerns Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the notorious former de facto leader of the camp, and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Holler, excellent in a very difficult role).
Hose spends his days overseeing the “processing” of trainloads of people, most of whom are sent directly to the gas chambers. He then returns home, where he and Hedwig eat dinner, celebrate birthdays, read stories to their children and plan spa vacations.
Or they have a picnic where we start with berry picking and sunbathing on a perfect afternoon. As night fell, they returned to a two-story villa on the outskirts of the camp (which the Nazis designated an “area of interest”).
It takes a while before we see the warning signs: the camp watchtower, then the flames darkening the sky. But we hear voices. Terrible word. The barking dog lets out screams and cries of terror. And the ugly roar – is it the bulging chimney, the oncoming train or both? Everything gets mixed up and you can't get it out of your head. (Mica Levy wrote the great score.)
In fact, Hedwig heard everything. So you wonder what she's thinking when she takes a nice fur coat into the bedroom, looks in the mirror, finds one she likes, and asks her maid to fix the lining.
Subtext, unwritten: Coat and lipstick in the pocket of a Jewish prisoner who is no longer alive. Soon we hear a conversation in the kitchen about coffee and toothpaste. Hedwig finds a diamond hidden in a tube – these prisoners are smart, she says – so she “demands” more toothpaste, turning the ordinary into the truly hideous.
Nearby, between Rudolph and some visiting businessmen, the gossip may be more elaborate but just as inappropriate. They're discussing a more efficient furnace model - the best cremation system money can buy, you might say. The words “burn,” “cool,” and “charge” can be heard; “Kill” is not the right word.
Life goes on: a new kayak, a birthday present from dad, a picnic with the kids in a quiet nearby river lead to an unexpected problem. While fishing in the river, Hoss discovers human remains floating nearby.
However, Hedwig Hoes loves her home. He proudly shows his mother, who is visiting, his growing garden with a small pool and wooden slide, who murmurs appreciatively: "You're awake, darling." Hedwig is proud. She noted that her husband called her the “Queen of Auschwitz.”
Based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis, but with the choice of a real protagonist, Glazer searched for years for documents that would reconstruct the history of the Hoss family and its collection for their house about 200 meters from the original building. .
The precision with which Glazer and production designer Chris Oddy executed this house - with the sky blue bed in the children's room just a few meters from the dirty barracks - is a masterpiece. Glazer also installed several surveillance cameras that followed various parts of the action, and the effect was that of a documentary with dialogue that often seemed improvised.
Hoss sees what's happening up on the wall up close. Hedwig certainly never crosses. “You have to get me out of here,” she says when her husband tells her they are going abroad. He successfully claimed to have been with the children in Auschwitz. “We live the way we dreamed,” she says. (Glaser received proof from a former gardener that such conversations took place.)
The film ends with Hoss learning in vain that he will return to Auschwitz at a rate of 12,000 per day to reinforce the Final Solution and exterminate the Hungarian Jews.
The real Hoss returns to commit more massacres (he is later executed for war crimes) and to his wife, who finds a way to grow beautiful flowers regardless of what happens on the same soil.
Surely few of us could imagine the design of a fur coat torn off a condemned prisoner. But what Glazer is trying to tell us through scenes like these - and even in his painful final minutes - is that history is full of examples of ordinary people finding ways to cover up others who are suffering. If we always assume that we are very different, we risk missing opportunities to learn from the past.
“The Zone of Interest,” an A24 release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “thematic elements, some suggestive elements and smoking.” Duration of the show: 105 minutes. Four out of four stars.
