Director: Jonathan Glazer. Writers: Jonathan Glazer & Martin Amis. Composer: Mica Levi. Cinematographer: Łukasz Żal. Editor: Paul Watts. Stars: Christian Friedel & Sandra Hüller.
It is true that modern societies are full of choices that were only available to kings and queens of pre-industrial world. In fact, many of the current options for regular folk are far superior than those in offer for the monarchs of the past. Particularly advances in the fields of medicine, physics and chemistry have almost completely wiped out many past curses of everyday life. Yet, efficient provision of mass goods holds also keys to exploitation, dehumanization, and ultimately genocide, if the cycle runs through its full course. Obviously such a process has nothing inherently inevitable, but ideals of complete efficiency function as a fuel for populists who wish to eradicate their adversaries. Complete efficiency requires purifying the society from all ill material that stands in the way of progress, argue the populists.
The Zone of Interest pictures a world on the brink of collapse. Desperate Nazis have moved to their ill-fated attempt to systematically murder all Jews across Europe and beyond. It is a background story that is known by anyone who cared to listen during school classes. However, unlike many recent movies about the Holocaust, The Zone of Interest keeps the horror on the side and allows viewers to make their own judgments. The focus of the story is on the lives of commander Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) who, for the most parts, seem rather ignorant of the fact that their home is right next to the Auschwitz concentration camp. As such, the movie cleverly portrays the extinction through characters whose morals are impossible to accept by today’s viewer.
The brilliance of the movie rises particularly from the contained domestic activities of Höss family. They are activities, like those of any middle class family unit. Adults are fishing and gardening, children are playing and swimming. They dream of better life after the war, while being afraid of something that is hard to put in to words. However, the soothing and comforting experience is constantly being disturbed by the surrounding reality. It is a reality of flames and darkness, of cries and silence, and of dignity and extinction. It is a reality that can be only ignored with child-like belief to the power of progress. It is a reality that is accepted because any alternative seems too daunting.
In the post-pandemic era, the contained life of Höss family has something disturbingly relatable. Commander Höss’s working from home has become almost a norm, alongside his hobbies and anxieties. And just as Höss family ignores the truth behind the walls of Auschwitz, so is the current middle class ignoring the brutal matter of facts found from today’s media outlets. Little is done even though cities are bombed to ashes and people are kidnapped from the streets. Yet, one may hope that the experiences of the Holocaust have been embedded deep enough to our collective understanding of history, so that we do not have to repeat the same cycle completely. After all, it is a cycle that must be turned to other direction before the darkness falls.
Efficient? Most definitely. Comfortable? As long as you forget the surrounding reality. Sustainable? Definitely not.
saukotuksia 
What’s your view?