The Zone of Interest

➤Rated PG-13
➤Theaters

In 1961, Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who helped orchestrate the Holocaust. When Arendt saw Eichmann at his trial, she was surprised to find him so normal. He was a small, balding man who claimed he was guilty of nothing because he was merely following orders. Arendt noted that all kinds of horror could be justified under the guise of doing one’s job.

Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest brings Arendt’s memorable phrase to the cinema, depicting the boring, everyday existence of a German family living in the shadow of Auschwitz during World War II.

Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) is the commandant of Auschwitz in Poland, and his family lives in a house that’s separated from the notorious extermination camp by a garden wall. While Rudolf works long hours managing the tedious logistics of gassing and incinerating thousands of Jews, his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) works to make a home for their five children. In her mind, they have an idyllic life, ­having found the Lebensraum—the Eastern European lands that were the target of Hitler’s expansionism—necessary for German flourishing. She gives little indication she’s bothered by the horrific price others are paying for her lifestyle.

The movie progresses through a series of mundane events that highlight the evil of the Nazi regime. The family celebrates Rudolf’s birthday, and after hugging his children he says he must get back to work. Hedwig works diligently in her garden. The children go off to school and spend their afternoons at play. And all the while the cries of anguish can be heard coming over the wall.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about The Zone of Interest is what’s absent. In this 105-minute-­long movie about the Holocaust, Glazer doesn’t show a single Jew. The closest we get to seeing Auschwitz’s victims is a scene in which a worker brings a bundle of fancy clothes for Hedwig and the women of her house to pick through. Dividing up the clothes of the murdered Jews elicits little comment from the household. It’s as if Glazer decided that the Holocaust is too evil to capture on film—as if any glimpse inside the camp would risk trivializing the atrocity. Or perhaps Glazer is suggesting that the erasure of Jews from the movie symbolizes an unjust society’s attempts to erase the minorities it oppresses.

There’s a certain detachment that goes hand in hand with banality, and Glazer crafted The Zone of Interest to accentuate that detachment, making it hard for the viewer to get close to this family. Most scenes feature full-body shots emphasizing the distance between the viewer and the Höss family. The dialogue is in German with English subtitles, and the movie has almost no background music. Plaintive cries and shouts from over the wall provide the soundtrack. The movie has an alienating effect on the audience that’s punctuated by even more alienating experimental scenes filmed in photographic negative.

During these weird interludes, Rudolf reads the story of Hansel and Gretel to his daughter, unironically recounting a fairy tale about children destined for an oven when that very thing is happening on the other side of the wall. Rudolf thinks he and his family are the story’s heroes, but we know he’s the wicked witch. Glazer wants us to consider who might be guilty of propping up systematic oppression today through adherence to the prevailing system, but the film’s detached style ensures viewers will never identify themselves with Rudolf and Hedwig. We’ll only read our enemies into the narrative.

The Zone of Interest demonstrates the challenge of making a movie that depicts the banality of evil: Banality is actually pretty boring. Glazer ostensibly adapted Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name, but Amis depicts a family’s disintegration through betrayal and murder in the shadow of Auschwitz. Glazer’s movie erases these lurid ­elements, focusing on everyday life. But even everyday life, separated from Auschwitz by a wall, becomes mundane and tedious after an hour and a half, giving the film an aura of pointlessness.