#Movie review: The Zone of Interest is a challenging exploration of banal evil

The Zone of Interest is a meticulously observed portrait of banal horror.

The latest film from director Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin, Sexy Beast) is a challenging watch but offers insight into the bland normality of evil.

It follows the daily life of Rudolf Höss – the Nazi commandant who ran the Auschwitz concentration camp – and his family who live together on the outskirts of the camp.

We see his wife Hedwig raising their five kids in an ‘idyllic’ setting, with access to nature and large gardens tended by camp prisoners surrounding their stately home.

This is a life the family had long sought after, with power, security and the ability to hob-nob among the Nazi elite.

But of course, that position had only been earned because of Rudolf’s willingness to participate in one of history’s greatest atrocities.

And though we never see beyond the wall into Auschwitz in The Zone of Interest, the sounds of its operations are always present, as are the shadows cast by smoke trailing in the air.

It is as much an art installation as it is a film, relying on sound design to tell the real story beneath what the audience is seeing.

Those sounds are as dreadful as you would imagine and might truly make you sick to your stomach at times.

With the weight of 80 years of history since the holocaust, most audience members will be aware enough of what happened to fill in the images that accompany the sounds.

It poses an interesting question about films depicting the holocaust and other terrible moments in human history.

Is it more effective to show the horror as in Schindler’s List and various documentaries that use archival footage, or to rely on the audience’s understanding thereof?

Which is kinder to the victims?

Reasonable people can disagree on the best way to do so, but I personally found this film more directly affecting than any other I have seen on the subject.

There’s no myth-making about history’s villains here, nor is there a “well they were just following orders” argument made.

These are evil people whose boring lives are proof of how little regard they have for their fellow humans.

It is an excellent film, deserving of its Best International Feature win at the Academy Awards.

But it is also genuinely disturbing at times and probably better suited to an arthouse audience.

Rated PG-13 for difficult themes and suggestive material.

4.5/5.