The Zone of Interest (film)

After his previous film Under the Skin, Glazer dedicated two years to reading extensively. During his visit to Auschwitz, he was affected by the residence of the commandant Rudolf Höss. Glazer collaborated with the Auschwitz Museum and other organisations, and obtained special permission to access the archives, where he examined testimonies provided by survivors and individuals who had been employed in the Höss household. By piecing together these testimonies, Glazer gradually constructed a detailed portrayal of the individuals connected to the events. Unlike the book it was inspired by, Glazer used the real people involved in the events rather than using fictional names to emphasise authenticity. The cinematography used cameras embedded around the set, keeping the crew away and allowing the actors to improvise during filming. Violence is depicted without being overtly shown, creating a film that avoids graphic violence and "feels less exploitative".[5][6] Hüller's real-life black Weimaraner dog played the dog Dilla in the film.[7]

Glazer confirmed development of the project in 2019, with A24, Film4 Productions, Access Entertainment and House Productions co-financing and producing.[8]

Principal photography began in Auschwitz in the summer of 2021,[9][10] and continued in Jelenia Góra in January 2022.[11] The entire film was shot in Poland and Germany.[12][13]

The Zone of Interest premiered to critical acclaim.[lower-alpha 1] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of 99 reviews are positive for the film, with an average rating of 9/10. The website's critics consensus states, "Dispassionately examining the ordinary existence of people complicit in horrific crimes, The Zone of Interest forces us to take a cold look at the mundanity behind an unforgivable brutality."[30] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 95 out of 100, based on 24 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[31]

Kevin Maher of The Times called it a "landmark movie, hugely important, that's unafraid of difficult ideas."[32] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called it a "devastating Holocaust drama like no other, which demonstrates with startling effectiveness [director Jonathan Glazer]'s unerring control of tonal and visual storytelling."[33] Donald Clarke of The Irish Times wrote, "Glazer may yet get in some trouble for taking such a formal approach to sensitive material. But, if anything, that self-imposed discipline – and utter lack of sentimentality – speaks to the profound respect he has for the subject."[34] Raphael Abraham of the Financial Times wrote, "Glazer has achieved something much greater than just making the monstrous mundane — by rendering such extreme inhumanity ordinary he reawakens us to its true horror."[35] Jonathan Romney of Screen International wrote that the film "eschews false rhetoric, leaving maximum space for the audience's imaginative and emotional response."[36]

David Ehrlich of IndieWire praised Glazer's camera process for instilling "a flattening evenness into a film where the lack of drama becomes deeply sickening unto itself."[37] Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph wrote, "Through painstaking framing and sound design, its horrors gnaw at the edge of every shot."[38] In a 4-star review, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it "a film which for all its artistry is perhaps not entirely in control of its (intentional) bad taste."[39]

Conversely, Italian film critic Davide Abbatescianni's review published by Cineuropa was less positive. He criticized the film for its disturbing atmosphere, which he found to be well-crafted but monotonous, and for the performances of the cast that he felt could not bring any change to the concept presented in a film that he thought lacked variety and remained stagnant for two hours.[40] Writing for Worldcrunch, the German critic Hanns-Georg Rodek wrote: "Here's the first question The Zone of Interest doesn't answer: is this ignorance? Of course it isn't. Is it conscious approval based on racist and nationalist delusion? I'm sure it is. Is it longing for an idyll in the midst of a situation perceived as threatening? Without a doubt. There are many attempts at an explanation, but they don't really interest Jonathan Glazer. Glazer describes the situation in what is possibly more oppressive than anything we've seen in Holocaust films before. It concentrates in one garden the attitude of an entire nation that wanted to know nothing."[41]