Atrocity in Zone of Interest
Terror and destruction has always been a contentious topic among filmmakers. Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog argues that you cannot simply show this destruction while Spielberg’s Schindler’s List fully embraces these atrocities from a visual perspective. Especially with a historical event as sinister and infamous as the Holocaust, it’s evident Glazer wanted to pay careful attention to both his execution and display of the subject matter.
The Zone of Interest is deeply chilling for a couple of reasons. Primarily, audiences will notice that there is almost no explicit violence throughout the entire film. For instance, we are shown a line of Jews walking through a field, yet they are mostly obscured by crops as Nazi officers on horses command our attention. A smokestack’s fumes rise up in burning hot flames in the background as Höss smokes a cigar. This idea of blockage and obstruction is evident all throughout the film. A stone wall literally separates Rudolf and his family from the horrors of Auschwitz.
The closest we get to this evil is when Rudolf steps into the camp and we hear cries of agony nearby. Yet, this shot of Rudolf is one of the only close ups in the entire film, and framed from a low angle through which we can only see the smoke of the camp over the top of Rudolf’s head.
This is further emphasized by the work of sound designer Johnnie Burn. Burn compiled a 600-page research document to accurately recreate the daily horrors happening beyond the Höss family's garden. Whileeach family member does their chores, a distant shriek or gunshot will fire off almost subconsciously. There is one scene in which the youngest son of the Hoss family is playing with his toys when he gazes out of the window after hearing the cries from across his house. The camera never shows us what the boy sees, yet we know he is oblivious to the violence as he winsomely remarks something along the lines of “that’s what you get.”
There is also something incredibly peculiar about the cinematography. Glazer shot the film using 10 fixed cameras placed around the house. Sandra Hüller said in an interview at New York Film Festival that, as a result, she was much more focused on playing the role holistically since she never knew where the camera was and needed to be a hundred percent in the moment. The frames appear almost like security cameras throughout the house, tracking the characters as they move. This creates even further separation between these characters and the audience. Almost never do we dolly into a character and almost never do we get a close up of anybody. Scenes are almost entirely covered in wide or medium shots that stay static. The camera thus never attempts to emotionally connect the audience with the characters, staying a careful distance from the evil that they are complicit in.
The Höss family is peculiar as it must be aware of the events that are occurring. Towards the end of the film, as Rudolf discusses a Nazi banquet he attended with his wife, he explains how he was only thinking about how best to gas the room. When Hedwig, his wife, talks to one of the servants, she chillingly remarks how she could have the servant’s ashes scattered across the camp. Yet, it’s evident that everybody in this family has emotionally detached themselves from a fundamental human instinct. They have forgotten that Rudolf’s work is concerned with burning other humans. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the film is the very end, when Rudolf walks down the stairs of a Nazi building all alone. He peers down into a dark hallway in which a tiny circle of light emerges. The story cuts to modern time in which workers are cleaning the Auschwitz memorial museum. For almost ten minutes, the camera fixates on the endless piles of shoes, suitcases, and carts of coal that were used to power the crematorium. We see a hallway featuring pictures of the innocent lives lost as the gentle hum of a vacuum engulfs the viewer’s hearing. Then, we cut back to Höss still looking down the hallway. In that moment, does Hoss realize the evil he has done? In that still moment, for even a second, does he consider the effect of his actions? Hoss merely turns and continues walking down the stairs as the film comes to an end. That the fear of the unknown is more devastating than anything else imaginable.