Jonathan Glazer’s fourth feature film is, oddly, his most accessible. The English writer-director’s quasi-Brechtian alienation is still present in his approach to subject, characters, and their dilemmas in their world, as are sequences in reverse exposure, uneven jumps in time, and even seconds of a deep red screen underscored by electronic droning. But despite the formal daring on display in THE ZONE OF INTEREST (worthily nominated five times by the famously conservative Oscars – a cause for celebration), the premise, stakes, and morality are clear and straightforward.

A loose adaptation of Martin Amis’ 2014 novel – optioned for film by Glazer almost immediately upon its publication, then radically reshaped by the director – THE ZONE OF INTEREST takes place outside – literally, directly outside – Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland. Here, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) lives with his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and six children from teenager to baby. Were it not for the nightmarish setting – firing squads, screams, and smoke underscoring nighttime conversations and daytime activities – they would be the model nuclear family under capitalism, diligently working for the good of their community and children. Indeed, they are the model family. Their mundanity allows – even enables – evil next door to thrive.

“The juxtaposition of domestic affairs with the inhuman activities just over the high wall topped with barbed wire (underscored by wholly diegetic noise except occasional moments of Mica Levi’s eerie score) makes THE ZONE OF INTEREST hard to forget.”

One of Glazer’s significant changes is removing Amis’ fictionalisations of the Höss family names in favour of portraying the real figures. Höss’ dedication and innovation are not unrecognised by his higher-ups in Berlin, and Friedel’s inherently charming screen presence is an unnerving contrast to the words of death and dehumanisation coming out of his mouth. As Hedwig, Hüller is perhaps even more unsettling, taking immense pride in her home and gardens as she has guests over for tea, yet revealing an equally immense fury when a servant disappoints her or when a promotion threatens the family idyll she has invested so long in. The juxtaposition of domestic affairs with the inhuman activities just over the high wall topped with barbed wire (underscored by wholly diegetic noise except occasional moments of Mica Levi’s eerie score) makes THE ZONE OF INTEREST hard to forget.

“One might ask whether THE ZONE OF INTEREST introduces or explores any new perspective on the Holocaust and its very ordinary perpetrators other than the “banality of evil”, Hannah Arendt’s well-known descriptor from her seminal reporting on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Nazi leader and major architect of the Holocaust. Perhaps it does not.”

One might ask whether THE ZONE OF INTEREST introduces or explores any new perspective on the Holocaust and its very ordinary perpetrators other than the “banality of evil”, Hannah Arendt’s well-known descriptor from her seminal reporting on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Nazi leader and major architect of the Holocaust. Perhaps it does not. Its horrors – with two exceptions – are all laid bare in the first 20 minutes. The remaining 85 minutes illuminate different facets of wilful blindness and cruelty without giving its characters any out, moment of reckoning, or slide into even deeper depravity. None of these are necessarily detrimental; the last point’s avoidance is wholly to the film’s benefit, a fitting reminder that most human rights abuses and even genocides are enabled by those who claim to be upholding law, order, and the status quo rather than exceptionally evil perpetrators.

Even if THE ZONE OF INTEREST does not add nuance or a new perspective to the conversation, its unflinching contrast of the everyday and unspeakable – and, in the final minutes, how we rationalise both in historical memory – lingers long in the mind. While not fully avoiding the inherent inability and exploitation of portraying an atrocity on the scale of the Holocaust, it rigorously presents the perpetrators with distance while denying the audience an escape.