Cannes can be a place of shocking change of tone. No sooner were the cartoon Nazis of Indiana Jones gone than they were overshadowed in an all-too-realistic way in Jonathan Glazer’s hilariously good The Zone of Interest. The title is taken from the 2014 novel by Martin Amis, who died on the day of the film’s Cannes premiere – but not much else. Glazer’s adaptation wisely eschews the comedic and romantic aspects of the book altogether, opting instead for an approach that’s ascetic, deadly serious, and devastatingly effective.
It begins with the return from a day in the country, the first indication of the milieu of hairstyles: heavy undercuts for the boys, braids and plaits for the girls. Then the flash of a license plate and the zigzagging SS logo that dispelled any doubt. The family home appears unremarkable at first: Hedwig (Sandra Hüller, frighteningly precise) takes care of domestic affairs in a primitive way; Rudolf (Christian Friedel) comes home from work to play patiently with the children who scurry into the manicured garden. And then he comes into view: the unmistakable watchtower, the barbed wire fence. Smoke rises nauseatingly into the garden. The name Höss is the last sign: we are at home with the commandant of Auschwitz and his happy clan, who live literally next door to the camp where 1.1 million people were killed.
Glazer’s camera maintains a cool detachment throughout, static shots that capture everyday family life as well as gruesome details – blood washing off dad’s boots, children playing with gold teeth – with no discernible shift in register. This is Hannah Arendt’s “Banality of Evil” filmed with reality TV’s equanimity. Master cinematographer Łukasz Żal (Ida) shot using pin-sharp, high-resolution digital technology. Only occasionally and for a short time is the aesthetic disturbed in negatively shot night scenes, which are reminiscent of fairy tales and are intended to tear us out of complacency or even boredom.
But the audio tells a different story: Johnnie Burn’s amazing sound design and Mica Levi’s oppressive synthesizer score merge into a sonic masterpiece. The house reverberate with a constant deep rumble, reminiscent of the murderous machines at work next door, the trivial family chatter punctuated by gunshots and screams. The Hösses don’t even bat an eyelid, the soundtrack of the genocide has become mere mood music. Only when it invades their own existence do they react, for example when the children are vigorously scrubbed clean after bathing in a river polluted by waste from the death factory. However, Hedwig is more concerned about the possibility of a job transfer for Rudolf that could drive them out of this “paradise,” while he is concerned about the damage to the lilac bushes decorating the camp.
The mind falters and the stomach turns; This is a movie that induces a bit of nausea throughout. When you see Höss choke towards the end, it’s hard not to follow him. Glazer has achieved something far greater than just making the monstrous mundane – by making such extreme inhumanity commonplace, he awakens us to its true horror again.
★★★★★
The festival runs until May 27, festival-cannes.com