The Zone of Interest

The Zone of Interest (2023)

With scenes reminiscent of the Seurat painting ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte’, The Zone of Interest disarmingly invites us into a relaxing country house in the summer of 1943.

Except this serene house and pastoral garden, home to an unremarkable family, is located next to Auschwitz.

And that’s the conceit. No storyline, or any action at all, but a glimpse of the mundane and practical sitting side by side the unimaginable crimes of the holocaust. It’s a formidable take which somehow leaves you feeling more disturbed than watching Schindler’s List.

Director Jonathan Glazer adapts the novel of same name; real accounts from the concentration camp, and sets up cameras around the home and garden allowing the mundanities unfold and as a result it feels more documentary than movie.

Under entirely natural lighting cinematographer Lukasz Zal offers pleasing pastels which hauntingly contradict the unnatural atrocities occurring beyond the concrete garden wall. The only visual variation being the night scenes, using a thermal camera, capturing the little girl hiding apples in the camp for the prisoners. Astonishingly true.

We don’t see any of the horror, the gratuitousness is always cleverly out of frame, but the day by day is scored by the constant running of engines, gun shots and occasional screams.

A non-spectacle that certainly needs to be seen, I wonder if it would be more impactful as a short film. I imagine a 45 minute version of this would make quite the unforgettable impression in your history class at high school.

9 Sobering Thumbs Up 👍🏻