The Zone of Interest

Christian Friedel and Sandra Huller

Distance is the distinctive feature of Jonathan Glazer's Martin Amis adaptation, The Zone of Interest. There is nary a close-up and little characterization. The camera work is generally, though not always, stationary and at a distance from the characters in order to emphasize their surroundings. Given that those surroundings include the Auschwitz concentration camp which one of the main characters, Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel) is the Commandant in charge of, little exegesis is needed on historical context or motivation. Hoss' wife, Hedwig (Sandra Huller), seems to be the tougher and more ambitious of the two. As we see them go about their domestic routine, the camera's distance prevents us from, in any way, empathizing with them. Hedwig handles the servants cruelly, piling on anti-Semitic invective. She acquires the furs, jewels, and fripperies of the Holocaust's victims and preens as the "Queen of Auschwitz". Glazer has stated the last thing he wanted to do was glamorize the Nazis. His aesthetic distance and emphasis on the domestic chores of the household done by cowed servants and prisoners create the desired effect.

Glazer moves the camera in The Zone of Interest to emphasize the Hoss' wickedness. A long dolly sequence of Hedwig guiding her mother through her estate, which includes elaborate gardens, a greenhouse and a small pool ("barefoot servants, too."), displays her overweening pride. Later, when she has learned her husband is about to be transferred, Glazer tracks her as she determinedly rushes to confront him: the movement exemplifying Hedwig's furious wrath. Like most husbands, Rudolf folds like a deck chair and Hedwig is mollified that she will not have to move from her precious Auschwitz.

Most of the time, though, the camera is fixed and unwavering in its view of commonplace depravity. The film is slow and deliberate, but this pays dividends throughout the film. A shot with the greenhouse in the background is repeated to great effect when, the second time, we see a line of smoke moving, signaling that another train has arrived to bring its bedraggled human cargo to their doom. Nearly all the effects Glazer brings to The Zone of Interest are fruitful. The soundscape and Mica Levi's score have been justly praised for evoking the horrors that remain out of site to the viewer. The astonishing thermal sequence links a resistance member's valor with the heroism in the fairy tales Rudolf tells his reads his children. Throughout, the glowing cinematography shows off the beauty of nature in contrast to the ugliness that man has wrought. 

Jonathan Glazer's four feature film are disparate, but share exemplary craft and a consistently dour view of humanity. Since Birth, Glazer has shifted away from characterization to such an extent that the camera regards his characters now as if he were surveilling alien beings. This, ultimately, may prove unrewarding, but in adapting difficult material like The Zone of Interest it has its merits.