The Zone of Interest (12A)

UK | 2023 | 105’ | 12a | Jonathan Glazer | German, Polish and Yiddish with English subtitles | Sandra Hüller, Christian Friedel

Rudolf, Hedwig and their family live in a perfect suburban dream home with their beautifully ordered house and garden. They strive to make a good, comfortable life for their children. But just over the fence are the sounds of death. Rudolf’s middle manager position that he has worked so hard for is the commandant of Auschwitz. Dispassionately examining the ordinary existence of people complicit in horrific crimes, this adaptation of the novel by Martin Amis by the innovative director Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Under the Skin) with a fantastic score by Mica Levi forces us to take a cold look at the mundanity behind an unforgivable brutality, witnessing a family living in a bubble of bourgeois denial, keeping the reality of genocide behind a wall.