Jonathan Glazer’s debut film was the sensational, incredibly volatile and high octane Sexy Beast, and although that film is often remembered for its high octane sequences and characters, Glazer has in his work since that film moved more to focus upon the subtler strengths of that first film and certainly as exemplified in his current and most recent film before it (this years The Zone of Interest and his previous masterpiece Under the Skin) his immense strengths in horror. Now I mean this in no crude way at all in regards to this film subject matter of the holocaust and how it could be perceived, but Glazer has with this film made an auditory horror film with the skin of a family drama that stands as one of the boldest films of the year and without a doubt the most unflinching and provoking. And yes, in so many ways, the scariest film of the year too. Portraying the regular family life of the commandant of Auschwitz with regularity and normality being the aim, offering us the foundation for Glazer’s latest masterpiece.

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The Zone of Interest is in many ways a formalist experiment that has more to say perhaps about the nature of depiction and cinematic artifice than perhaps it does about its actual subject matter. This for me is less a film about the holocaust and its history in totality, as much as it is how that genocide has been depicted on film prior and the aspects of the individuals that have not thus been presented on film. Glazer is not offering here a human portrayal of his figures, instead rather a forensic and truthful one, with a practically documentarian style at times. In my British screening, there was no greater shock for me than when the rating appeared prior to the film and read 12a – I until that moment had no idea to what extent we truly were not going to see much of anything and this was with understanding the nature of the film. Glazer’s impeccable work here is some of the finest craft of the year, working with cinematographer Lukasz Zal to create a serious of images with a lurking pathos and terror often unfolding slowly with a mystery element within them (the darkest example of which regarding smoke and its origin). The film is cold and unfeeling and yet its inhabitants are often hopeful and blissfully happy in their surroundings, Sandra Huller for instance often is disgustingly radiant and dismissive of those who reject her perfect little world. Christian Freidel’s figure of Rudolf Hoss himself is a more complex and interior figure and yet even him is focussed on particularities that baffle the viewer when they are spoken of with the same weight as the roaring machine of destruction that is occurring on the other side of the wall of his house. Both Huller and Friedel are brilliant here for what it is worth, but it is Glazer and his team that are the true focus of the films excellence. Perhaps more so even than Glazer one has to note Johnnie Burn, the film’s sound designer and in many ways chief auteur here. The film brutally hinges on ratcheting sound and is punctuated by another astoundingly bizarre yet wholly perfect score by Mica Levi, to further make this incredibly unsettling piece of work the truly astounding masterpiece that it is.

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10/10. A masterpiece of horror and an incredible filmic experiment in its impact discussing the  nature of the atrocity or war, prescient as it ever could be of course. It has been described as less a film and more of an art piece and I think such arguments have weight, even if they are slightly reductive of form. Because this is experimental in nature and in its conceit and construction it does share more with visual art then perhaps it does a standard war film, but it is in that dichotomy of what we see and don’t see and chiefly what we hear where Glazer finds the crux of one of the years best films. Much has been said about those saying that it’s the best film they saw this year, but they never want to see it again. To be frank, this film was such an entrancing, sickening and powerful piece of work that I can’t wait to see it again.

P.S. From my recent article discussing Glazer’s previous three brilliant films; The pain of Jonathan Glazer’s career in film is that it is just so painfully in-frequent. The man has made three truly exceptional films [now of course four], each of them so wonderfully different from the other and yet I just wished I had so many more. However if it takes this amount of years each time for Glazer to achieve the quality that he makes, then I can’t argue with that. Even if I wished it weren’t so. The opinion still stands and will stand for ever more it seems.

-       - Thomas Carruthers