The Zone of Interest – are the Commandant’s family really living the dream next door to the Auschwitz concentration camp?

The Commandant’s family reside next door to Auschwitz concentration camp. While Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) spends his time with engineers trying to build ever more efficient methods of killing and burning prisoners in the camp crematoriums, his family enjoy the use of a large garden, an outdoor swimming pool, and the best of clothes taken from Jewish prisoners arriving at the camp. Hedwig Höss (Sandra Hüller) urges him to take the family back on vacation to a spa in Italy. He is noncommittal as he broods over his new orders to leave the comfort of Auschwitz and take over a role closer to Berlin.

Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest contrasts domestic bliss – though Hedwig isn’t aware of the female prisoner who visits her husband in his office – with the mostly unseen but always heard horror on the other side of the camp wall. We see smoke billowing out of the tall chimneys that dominate the skyline from the house and garden. Licks of flame light up the night sky. But the ever-present soundscape that betrays the mass killing is the dull drone of machinery, marching and occasional gunfire.

Rudolf is portrayed as a cold fish. His most tender moments come when he says goodbye to the horse that he rides across the road to work each morning. Hedwig is living the high life and doesn’t want to let go of the current perks of being married to the Commandant. The couple’s children don’t have much freedom, and while they’re living in total comfort compared with the prisoners nearby, the camp’s presence and unspoken activity distresses them.

The film occasionally escapes the unsettling humdrum home life to watch a young Polish woman from the local town leave apples for the prisoners to find when they’re out working the next day. It’s just about the only act of compassion in the 105-minute film.

The unseen horror is constantly contrasted with the banal life of the high ranking Nazi family. In later scenes, we see Rudolf in his new quieter work environment. Gone are the fumes and the noise of death. But we seem him nearly throw up as he leaves the building late one evening. The audience have been mentally retching for an hour or more at this point.

The Zone of Interest is being screened in Cineworld Belfast, Omniplex Cinemas and Queen’s Film Theatre.

 

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