The Zone of Interest

With The Zone of Interest, (and very recently, The Holdovers) I've now seen every one of the Oscar Best Picture nominees. It's a first-time-ever(?) feat for me, thanks largely in part to the Oscars being [somewhat] #relevant this year.

And it ends on the film that I have the most complicated thoughts around. 

The Zone of Interest is an experiment from director Jonathan Glazer, through and through. It basically provides us a film about Auschwitz, while completely outside the confines of it. Instead, it focuses on the neighborhood right outside its walls, where our time is spent with Nazi commander Hoss, his family, and their - rather mundane - day-to-day happenings. All the meanwhile, sounds of Auschwitz can be heard in the background. Some indiscernible and hard to understand what they might be, while others are hauntingly straight forward. 

I have so many thoughts on this film that I can hardly organize them into a review and, being fully transparent, my final score is pretty much irrelevant. The Zone of Interest is a hard watch for many, many reasons. It's not engaging. Instead, it's rather boring. It spotlights Nazi leaders. Should it? Should they have that attention? But it does so in a way that makes their evil nature even more shocking. By discussing the efficiency of gas chambers and furnaces with the same demeanor that I discuss revenue cycle management in my own career, it struck a chord with me. There are risks here. Moments of confusing, but jarring, thermal image usage. It begs the question if any of this horrific event should be "experimented" with. It digs away at you in uncomfortable ways. While Hoss' wife walks her mom through her lush garden, distant gunshots can be heard. While Hoss himself enjoys a cigarette at dusk, flames flicker from atop a furnace smokestack as the audience is tuning their hearing to wonder: "are those screams?" I was actively very frustrated with the film and how boring it could be at most points, seemingly having no plot for the first half. In hindsight, I see my frustration as anger toward the fact that these people are discussing gossip, or their bratty children, while less than a mile away, hundreds upon thousands of people are being exterminated. The juxtaposition between a comfortable, nice life of the Nazis during one of mankind's darkest moments caused me anxiety. It pissed me off. 

Then the ending perhaps "saved" The Zone of Interest for me. It smacked me right between the eyes. Among many haunting scenes that exist in this film, the ending - which I won't give away here - hurts. Not just because of its imagery, but because of how powerfully simple it is. 

And honestly, the fact that I'm still thinking about various moments, and the thing as a whole, hours days after watching it...frustrated, confused, shocked, and angry...that's the point of this experiment. I didn't like The Zone of Interest, but I've approached a point where I can respect it. Like many movies based on the Holocaust, this isn't an enjoyable watch. It's hard to say I "recommend" it. And while there's some fantastic technical filmmaking on display, I'd reemphasize that my final score doesn't really matter. I could see it changing over time. As for whether or not you should see this Best Picture nominee? I can't say. But I hope that I was able to inform you of what you may experience if you choose to. 

Rapid Rath's Review Score | 8/10