The Zone of Interest: the long-awaited return of Jonathan Glazer
Nine years after fascinating us with UFOs Under the skin starring Scarlett Johansson as a man-eating alien, director Jonathan Glazer is finally back with the feature film The area of interestloosely based on the homonymous novel by Martin Amis published in 2014.
The plot takes place during the Second World War and follows the daily life of Rudolf Höss, commandant of the Auschwitz campand his wife Hedwig, who are trying to build a dream life with their family in a house with a garden, right next to the field.
It was summer in Auschwitz too
The area of interest opens on a beautiful sunny day, on the banks of a river. This is where Rudolf Höss and his family enjoy themselves together before returning their pretty pavilion (what was then called “the area of interest”), located just behind the walls of the camp. It is in this bucolic setting that his wife Hedwig is busy building their “little paradise”.
We will see nothing of the horror of the Holocaust. No skeletal prisoners sent to the gas chambers, no bodies burned in crematoria, no summary executions. Because these unbearable scenes remain forever engraved in our minds. Glazer, in his sagacity, relies on our collective memory, immersing us simple echoes (and we can only salute the dazzling sound work) into the hellish abyss of Auschwitz, which takes place offscreen.
The distant cries, the incessant rumble of the crematorium ovens, from which curls of black smoke emerge, do not in the least shake the routine of this family, whose worries seem limited to the maintenance of their splendid garden, where life abounds, while beyond their walls death reigns. Like inhabitants of a highwayside house accustomed to the turmoil outside, they seem numb to the daily din of the Final Solution.
Of the prisoners sent to the death camp, only fragments remain on the screen: a fur coat, children’s clothes, jewelry, teeth.
The face of evil
When Jonathan Glazer portrays the existence of a high-ranking Nazi and his family in this way, he instills humanity in them. While this approach may put you off, it actually works essential reminder : The Nazis were human beings, and it is precisely human beings who hold the power to bring about such atrocities.
Embracing this perspective reveals a disturbing truth: the abyss of cruelty can emanate from our own humanity. Therefore, faced with this distorted mirror, we are forced to question our own nature and face the dark potential that lies dormant in each of us. In this poignant meditation, the individual is faced with an inescapable reality: only humanity can invoke the darkest demons of her being.
The area of interest by Jonathan Glazer will soon be released in cinemas in France.
Source: Cine Serie
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