Jonathan Glazer’s 2023 film The Zone of Interest was one of the most disturbing and difficult films I’ve ever watched. I have been pondering what to write about it for a long time. In light of Glazer’s brave acceptance speech for his film winning the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, I want to finally convert what I’ve been thinking in my mind into written words here. We must share ideas that are important.
The Zone of Interest follows Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz. The focus of the film is his home life with his wife and children, who live in a house next door to Auschwitz. The way the family’s house is presented involves a specific cinematographic approach: The cameras seem to be attached to the walls of the house and the courtyard, giving the film a distanced, observational feel. The cameras do not close in on any of the family members, nor do they move to provide tracking shots, pans, or any similar such shots that require movement. The audience members are flies on the wall, and the movie has a voyeuristic feel. I almost felt as if I were watching documentary or surveillance footage due to the constant cuts between stationary shots.
In this removed way, the audience watches the mundane events of Höss’s home life, including pool parties with his children and gift exchanges on birthdays. Meanwhile, ever-present are sounds of the atrocities committed at Auschwitz against the Jews who were imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis. As the children and parents in the Höss family live their daily lives, gunfire, screams, and shouts fill the air. The smoke from the crematoria that burned the bodies of the people murdered in the gas chambers fills the sky above the house. The film barely even provides any context for what’s happening and entirely requires the knowledge that us viewers have going into the film in order to achieve its impact. It’s a chilling and disturbing film because of how it forces viewers to fill in the gaps of what is left off-screen and to view the callousness of the people on screen with our heads and hearts aware of the atrocities of the Holocaust. Even when explicit details about the Nazi’s concentration and extermination camp systems are discussed, they are done so in a matter-of-fact, business-as-usual manner. Genocide, brutality, and mass murder are just aspects of daily life for Rudolf Höss, nothing out of the ordinary.
The film shook me, and its surprising ending haunted me for a long time.
In the film’s final moments, Höss is in a Nazi government building in Berlin. He stares down a dark hallway, and the film cuts to present day, to the Auschwitz museum. Using cinematography very similar to that of the rest of the film, with cameras that feel as if they are attached to the walls, the film shows the people who work at the museum opening for the day. They unlock doors of what remains of gas chambers and crematoria. They vacuum hallways filled with exhibits of what the people who were imprisoned at Auschwitz were forced to give up, including shoes, clothes, and other personal belongings. They are surrounded by the artifacts of genocide, and they continue their work.
What did this ending mean? I wonder if the film, in showing the Auschwitz museum, is making a commentary on the futility of representation. The camera angles, editing, and sound design in the museum once again create the feeling of being a fly on the wall. The distanced way in which the artifacts of the Holocaust are shown once again requires the viewers to understand the significance of what the camera includes. There are no filmmaking techniques that cue the audience to have a particular emotional response. Because viewers bring their own understanding to the present-day scene, they understand the meaning of the artifacts, the stolen belongings, the taken shoes. It is because of the viewer’s hearts and awareness that the scenes at the museum are heartbreaking.
Perhaps the film is saying that any means of remembrance on its own is insufficient unless people are compelled to do the work of remembering and to take action. A film’s mere existence isn’t enough. Same with a museum’s artifacts. People have to do the necessary work of knowing what happened and of responding to these means of representation and remembrance. The documented facts of atrocity and the evidence of horrific crimes are not enough to arouse action. They would just be plain facts and ordinary objects, not enough to arouse change unless people engage with them with empathy, with purpose, with noble goals for justice and goodness.
The film asks a lot of its audience, and in its depiction of the present day, I think it calls on the audience to continue to stay aware and attentive to injustice and horror, to not become numb to it. Normalization or detachment must actively be resisted. The film is a call to action.
Reflecting on this ending, I was thinking about current atrocities happening around the world today, with the most prominent in my mind being the escalation of violence against Palestinians. I wondered if the connection I made was just the result of what was on my mind, if I was reading too much into the movie. When I learned of Glazer’s acceptance speech, I realized that I was indeed supposed to think of the atrocities being committed against Palestinian civilians, among other atrocities happening in the world.
In his acceptance speech, Glazer said, “All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present. Not to say, look what they did then, rather, look what we do now. Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we [himself and his collaborators on the making of The Zone of Interest] stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization — how do we resist?”
While his speech was met with applause at the ceremony, it was met with criticism and attacks. I am disheartened by these criticisms and believe them to be unfair. An open letter with thousands of signatures denounced Glazer for comparing Nazi Germany with Israel. He did not do that. He was talking about how Israel is committing an occupation and how the country justifies its occupation of Palestine by invoking the Holocaust. What Glazer said is a simple fact; leaders in Israel have done this and continue to do this. The letter also criticized Glazer for describing what Israel is doing as an occupation. Again, this is disheartening and unfair criticism. I don’t know how else to describe the confiscation of Palestinian land by Israel and the restricted movement of Palestinians in their own territory as anything other than an occupation.
The criticism of Glazer both misrepresents the humane message he was sharing and ignores the facts of what is really happening. The criticism only bolsters the importance of his message even more: we need to confront what is happening and do something. I am heartened by the signed open letter that has come out supporting Glazer’s message.
We need to listen to Glazer’s call to do something. First, we must recognize the facts that are agreed upon by multiple international sources. An article by Time Magazine compiled estimates provided by various sources to determine that, since October 2023, about 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza, many of whom have been women and children. Furthermore, in regards to those of us who are from the U.S., because the United States is Israel’s closest ally and gives funds — some of which include taxpayer dollars — that Israel uses for its military, the fact is that we are complicit in the killing of Palestinians.
As Glazer asked, how do we resist? Though I sometimes feel pangs of despair that nothing can make a difference, I have to combat this despair. All of us must. Doing something is better than nothing. The American Friends Service Committee lists useful beginning steps to take action to help end the suffering, which include calling our representatives in Congress and demanding an immediate ceasefire, boycotting businesses that profit from the conflict, and joining marches and protests. I commend the courageous activists of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Columbia University’s campus, and I condemn their arrests. I am moved by the protests across the U.S. in solidarity with these activists.
I don’t know what will happen, but I do know that if we become numb to the atrocities, if we let dehumanization continue, then more innocent people will die. Whenever suffering happens, we must not feel resigned or accept it in any way, whether our acceptance is borne of indifference or despair.
We must strive for peace.
The conflict must cease.
Hamas must safely return all hostages.
Israel must grant Palestinians the full rights and freedoms of citizenship or allow Palestine to become its own independent country.
The suffering in Gaza must end.
Free Palestine.
This is so important. I think you are spot-on with your connection of Zone of Interest and today's conflict in Gaza. It's easy to think of these horrifying acts as a thing of the past but we look past signs of horror all the time. Now, more than ever. We see horrible things on the news and in our feeds and it's overwhelming. But we look back at the Holocaust and think, 'How could they have let something like that happen?'
Excellent post!