Over the Gate

When watching a movie about the Holocaust, or about slavery, I’m always mindful of what year it is. How close are we to the end of the war, and therefore liberation? Is that something that we’re going to see before the narrative is over, a moment of hope that brings a cathartic end to the worst conditions imaginable?

The Zone of Interest isn’t that kind of movie. There’s no liberation, no triumph, and even though the main Nazi from the film did suffer a just comeuppance in real life, the movie ends long before that happens. It also isn’t the type of Holocaust film that plunges straight into the viscera of the violence itself. And —best of all —it’s completely lacking in scenes in which a mugging Taika Waititi is dressed as Hitler.

Directed by Jonathan Glazer and adapted, loosely I gather, from the 2014 historical novel of the same name by Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest tells the story of Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), who for most of the war was the commander of Auschwitz. But the film is less about his work than about the day-to-day mundanity of Höss and his family. We see them swimming, having picnics, setting up a household and garden and living their daily lives, in the shadow of that death camp on the other side of the walls.

The phrase “the banality of evil” comes to mind repeatedly. We see the characters making logistical decisions about which Jews to move to which camps, and also about their home furnishings decisions, both done with the same bloodlessness.

German actress Sandra Huller (so great earlier this fall in Anatomy of a Fall) plays Hoss’ wife Hedwig, as the film borrows a page from Sarah Paulson in 12 Years a Slave in that the wife is notably meaner than her Nazi-commander spouse. When Rudolf is offered a new assignment that takes him away from Auschwitz, Hedwig insists on staying.

There’s also a brief flash-forward to the future but not, like, the Schindlerjuden at the cemetery in Israel at the end of Schindler’s List. I think they’re both great movies, but from style to focus to storytelling, The Zone of Interest is everything Schindler’s List isn’t.

It can’t be overstated just how different The Zone of Interest is from just about every other major movie about the Holocaust and/or Nazis. The prisoners are almost entirely off screen, and the film spends very little time inside the camp itself. We do, however, hear it, in a way that’s never less than chilling.

In something of a rarity, it’s a British film that’s mostly German-language, so it’s therefore eligible as Britain’s entry for the Best International Film Oscar. But that’s not all that’s rare about The Zone of Interest. Glazer’s a respected director who rarely makes films. After his classic debut, Sexy Beast, in 2000 and Birth four years later, Glazer went nearly a decade before his next film, 2013’s Under the Skin, and 10 more years before the new film. The Zone of Interest isn’t going to end up as anyone’s idea of a fun night out at the movies. But it’s still an achievement.