What I knew about this moving going in: 1. It was by the director of Sexy Beast, which almost meant something to me when I heard that tidbit of information. 2. The lady from Anatomy of a Fall is in it and could get Oscar nominations for both movies. 3. It was only one hour and forty-five minutes long. 

All of these are good to neutral things! 

What I know about Zone of Interest after seeing it: 1. It’s not a movie I’m going to recommend to my parents. 2. The lady from Anatomy of a Fall is very good in this, and I will allow her the double nomination, if it comes! 3. All movies can and should be on hour and forty-five minutes long.

Also, this movie is very good at what it does/is doing/has set out to be. 

Now, if you want to go in unsullied to this film, stop reading. If you don’t care/probably won’t see it anyway, keep reading. Part of me thinks I should’ve Done My Research before going to the theater, because it took me a good twenty minutes to really grasp the setting of the film.  I won’t spoil any of the plot (lol, what plot?), but I am going to talk about the central premise of the film, which is kind of the whole thing. 

Here we go. 

The movie opens in blackness. Seriously. There’s sound–voices, people upset, gun shots. This goes on…for a while. I think people around me were starting to wonder if something had happened to the video. I know I was. 

Then suddenly we’re with a family on a river bank, enjoying a picnic.

Now, this is where I do kind of wish I’d gone in knowing a little more about the movie. These people obviously look “not present day,” but I was so concerned with trying to place them in a certain era (past or future), that I’m afraid I missed some important info. Did the sound continue over this scene? Was there a plume of smoke in the background of their little picnic? Were there other clues as to what was going on?

Because this family doesn’t live in some idyllic town. They live in a house right next to Auschwitz. 

Yes, the movie follows a family of Nazis though their daily lives. The father, Rudolph, runs Auschwitz, or at least, he’s in charge of the incinerator. His whole thing is trying to figure out a better way to burn people. Does he really believe in the cause or is he just so singularly focused on being the best at his job that he rationalizes away the human cost? Unclear. Obviously, either way, he’s a monster. 

The mother is living in her actual dream home there, right next to Auschwitz. She’s planted a garden! She’s put in a pool! She’s living her best life, never mind the screams and soot coming from next door! 

None of the expected beats happen as the movie unfolds. No one has a “come to Jesus,” “what we’re doing is wrong” moment. No one gets their comeuppance. No one learns any lessons. Which is very real, and very deliberate. 

The essence of this movie is about how much people will ignore or rationalize or excuse in order to get what they want (a beautiful greenhouse!). Using Auschwitz as the backdrop is an extreme example, but I couldn’t help but think about all the smaller-scale injustices we overlook because inconvenient truths get in the way of our normal lives. I thought about how often we as a society dehumanize certain people because it makes it easier to avoid helping them, or worse, to excuse injustices done to them.

Zone of Interest is a great companion piece to Killers of the Flower Moon. There will always be people out there willing to do horrible things in order to get what they want or to get ahead, and these same people will write off their actions as righteous—they had it coming, they don’t deserve the riches they have, they’d do the same to us were the roles reversed. 

These are chilling thoughts, and Zone of Interest is a chilling film.