The events within the walls of Auschwitz have been and will probably be a subject of interest for filmmakers. They make for powerful, sometimes shocking and always heartbreaking movies, like Steven Spielberg’s influential Schindler’s List or the harrowing Son of Saul. Now, Jonathan Glazer, the director of Sexy Beast and the sci-fi Under The Skin, has given us an unusual angle on the horrors of Auschwitz. Instead of focusing on the victims, how about the commandant and his family?

Living directly next door to the concentration camp, Commandant Rudolf Hoss, his wife Hedwig, and their children have created a world of normality, while beyond the high concrete walls that surround their house and garden are the noises of death and horror. Yet life for the Hoss family involves parties, swimming in the local beauty spot and meeting friends.

Glazer’s film, based on a novel by Martin Amis, does something very clever. Instead of making the audience uncomfortable with the details of the horrendous events within the camp, he uses sound. Sound is the key to making this movie work. From the start, in which we go from title card to blackness for what seems like an eternality, with Mica Levi’s uneasy score playing, the noises switch to bird song and sounds of the countryside. This is the only part of the film with some form of gentleness because, once the family groups out for a picnic on a summer’s day and heads home, the relentless sound is a mix of gunshots, screams and inaudible German orders.

Even when celebrating Hoss’s birthday, surrounded by officers and soldiers of the camp, the sounds never stop. A party of children splashing about in the pond has the echos of death, and even at night, when quiet should be all around, the sound seems to get louder. Yet the family continue as if nothing is happening beyond those walls. Glazer sets out to show that even monsters live pretty ordinary lives. However, their lives are far from ordinary.

Glazer never lets us see the Jewish people within the camp. Even when they are out in the local fields, they are just figures. This allows us to focus more on how this man, highly regarded by those within the German army, was, in fact, a reasonably dull man, and it’s his wife, surrounded by locals to keep the house in good shape, who seems more in charge. That doesn’t mean that Glazer forgets to shock. Little moments like bringing the clothes of the dead for the housemaids to choose one item while Hedwig tries on an expensive fur coat send shivers down the spine.

This is a film of juxtaposition. The calmness of the family beyond the wall compared to what is happening on the other side. A meeting of designers of a new furnace is like a business looking to expand its building. Scenes of the family enjoying the sun with a chimney in the foreground bellowing smoke. It never lets you forget that this film is where the horror isn’t in your face but is always there. The visit of Hedwig’s mother ends with the elderly woman unable to stay as her sleepless nights are infected by the flames from the camp. The nanny relies on drink to get through everything.

What also works so well is that Glazer hasn’t given us conventional storytelling. There is no beginning, middle or end but just day-to-day events, and when Hoss is promoted and has to move away, inexplicably, Hedwig wants to stay in the home they have made. It’s these moments that make the film so shocking.

The performances are excellent in their ordinariness. Sandra Hüller, who is also in the equally brilliant Anatomy of a Fall, is terrific as Hedwig, while Christian Friedel never once comes across as a murderous monster as Hoss. The fact that these performances are never showy or flashy makes the film seem even more unremarkable yet remarkable.

The Zone of Interest is a powerful movie in the quietest of ways. It will make you think and probably make you want to talk about your experience of watching. No matter how you approach this film, it’s not an easy watch but absolutely deserving of the awards it has been nominated for. A work of clever genius.

5 out of 5

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Starring: Sandra Hüller, Christian Friedel, Freya Kreutzkam, Ralph Herforth, Max Beck, Ralf Zillmann, Imogen Kogge, Stephanie Petrowitz

Written by: Jonathan Glazer and (based on the novel) Martin Amis

Running Time: 105 mins

Cert: 12A

Release date: 3rd February 2024