Films for Breakfast

Director Jonathan Glazer hasn’t made many films in his long career, but everytime he does, it subverts expectations by being unlike anything audiences would expect from the subject matter he’s tackling and especially unlike anything else that is currently playing in theaters. Glazer’s latest film, The Zone of Interest, fits nicely in his resume of making films that are nothing like you’d expect them to be – a WWII horror/drama that is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. The film is an adaptation of the book of the same name which follows Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) as they strive to build a dream life for their family near the Auschwitz concentration camp. 

The immediate thing that sets The Zone of Interest apart from other WWII films is the fact that it doesn’t linger on any form of violence or on the atrocities of the Holocaust, but instead opts to show the day-to-day life of a German family whose father is a Nazi. Instead of seeing the inner-working of the war or camps, we see the family tending to their garden or preparing dinner – all of which are set to the backdrop of screaming, gunshots, etc. While we don’t see any violence forthright, Glazer finds an absolutely fascinating and horrific angle to convey how atrocities like the Holocaust can not only be normalized but politicized and integrated into a society. 

This is a deeply ambitious project that goes against the norm of what one would expect from not only a WWII drama, but also just a traditional narrative film – and in that sense, the technical components of the film really have to come to the play. One of the biggest compliments I can pay the film is how it utilizes sound to its advantage, and how it incorporates horrific sounds into the backdrop of seemingly normal shots of characters doing everyday things. While the gunshots and screams are deliberately not piercing from afar, the way these characters keep their heads down in spite of the atrocities is one of the most horrifying things you’ll witness in a film this year.

Glazer also uses some unusual and unsettling imagery to create a nightmarish, cerebral tone and mood for the film. A lot of films are compared to Kubrick in a way that I find grating, but in the case of not only Glazer’s entire filmography but especially The Zone of Interest, I think it’s actually quite spot-on; there’s such a looming sense of dread and calculated coldness that feels so integral to the entire point of the film. It’s one of the most haunting films I’ve seen in quite a while and throughout this unconventional approach to telling the story, Glazer has crafted one of the most effective films about WWII that I’ve ever seen. 

4.5/5