Zone of Interest: A haunting look at casual barbarism

Jonathon Glazer’s acclaimed film, The Zone of Interest, is about the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, who lives right next door to the camp, where he and his wife Hedwig have built an idyllic family life.

Based loosely on Martin Amis’s novel of the same name, it creates an incredibly effective picture of the casual barbarism. On Höss’s birthday, for instance, he holds a meeting with engineers to discuss plans for more effective crematoria at the camp, before being toasted by his fellow officers and enjoying cake with his family later that day.

 

Hedwig is more than happy to receive clothes taken from camp inmates. We see her try on a fur coat and, finding a lipstick in one pocket, try that too.

 

Her visiting mother muses, almost jokingly, whether a Jewish woman she knew, and whose book events she attended, had been sent to Auschwitz. And in a throw-away comment, she notes that she was out-bid for the woman’s curtains in a street sale.

 

It is the normalisation of the dehumanisation that’s vital for genocide.

 

Repeatedly, the camera tracks a figure down one length of the vast garden, alongside the wall of the camp, with its buildings, chimneys and guard towers rising above.

 

Hedwig happily takes her youngest child around the magnificent garden, introducing her to flowers, while in the distance, we hear the sounds of the camp.

 

Glazer didn’t want to show the inside of Auschwitz – and he doesn’t have to for the film to convey a real sense of horror.

 

Sound designer Johnnie Burn put together a 600-page document in order to understand the camp layout and witness statements, together with a sound library that included the sounds of crematoria, machinery, historically correct gunfire, cries of pain and trains.

 

It is a soundscape that means however perfect the Höss family’s life looks, the viewer can never see it without being reminded that it happened within earshot of industrial mass murder – and that they all choose to ignore this.

 

And then there are the two central performances. Christian Friedel as Höss is so utterly engrossed in work that it is a mission – no matter the horrific reality of it, and Friedel portrays him as cold when on that mission, yet a dedicated and loving father. Sandra Hüller as his wife is also superb – little wonder that she has picked up a raft of award nominations – as a woman who is happy to bring up her children in such proximity to mass murder.

 

Łukasz Żal’s cinematography is deceptively simple – almost ‘flat’. Yet the look works incredibly well.

 

Glazer – who also wrote the film – has received nominations too. The film itself has already picked up awards, including the unique double of best British film and best film not in the English language at the recent Baftas.

 

Burn, together with Tarn Willers, have also been rewarded for the sound.

 

It is in many ways a very calm film, but most certainly not a comfortable one. It is, without doubt, an extraordinary piece of filmmaking that will not be easy to forget.

One Life: Remembering the 'British Schindler'

How do you make a film about rescuing children from the Nazis in 1939, without succumbing to clichés or sentimentality, yet ensuring that it also makes a deeply important statement about refugees and war in 2024?

Well, director James Hawes, together with screenwriters Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, have done a pretty good job with One Life, a film about Sir Nicholas Winton and his central involvement in organising the evacuation of – predominantly, but not only – Jewish children from Prague in 1939.

I’ve seen the film condemned as “workmanlike”. And that it doesn’t engage enough with what happened to those who were rescued – or remember those involved in the rescues besides Winton.

But having now watched it, this is nonsense. Yes, it is a very straightforward take on the story. Nothing wrong with that – and it is very clear that Winton himself was not the only one involved in rescuing over 660 children. Yet he played an absolutely crucial role in that.

In terms of the later stories of the children rescued from the Prague refugee camps and those told, via That’s Life in 1988, we start to learn of these.

It’s important history and utterly relevant today – but what elevates this as a film are the performances. Johnny Flynn is superb as the young Winton. Helena Bonham Carter, as Winton’s mother, is in absolutely stonking form.

And then there are the recreations of the That's Life! episodes. As Winton's wife, Grete, observes, it's a 'silly' TV show. Yet it created an iconic British TV moment when bringing Winton's story to the wider public – and reuniting him with some of those he had been involved in saving, without any silliness and with all seriousness. Which itself helped propel the story.

Samantha Spiro, as the show's host Esther Rantzen, does an extraordinary job here, portraying a major media figure, who is still very much with us.

And then there is Anthony Hopkins as the older Winton. His performance really gives the film the gravitas and power it needs. He can say so much more in a silence than most actors can, and captures Winton’s sense of guilt at those who couldn’t be saved in a way that is quietly explosive.

Go see it. And, as I did, weep. For the past, for the present and for the future.