HamVirtuoso

Many films about the Holocaust tend to use suspense to build to a climax or emotional catharsis. There is a level of faith put in the audience's moral clarity here which allows Jonathan Glazer to focus on the intensity and fear within each frame of the sunny domestic environment, rather than turning the brutality into a spectacle. *The Zone of Interest* makes the viewer aware of the frightening human capacity for compartmentalization. The Höss family focuses purely on the mundane pursuit for comfort and career advancement. The evil that is present here is not presented primarily through passion and emotion, but rather through human extermination being treated as executive and organizational. One of the key elements of the film is the sound. It is the distant echoes of gunshots and cries which lay a blanket over the whole movie. Although some scenes draw particular attention to these elements, there is always a general feeling of constant tension and discomfort felt by the body, even if it is not recognized by the mind. In the final scene where the camera sweeps over the glass displays of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, the sense of historical distance is stripped away. It steps away from the traditional film format and reminds us of the permanent weight of erased lives.