After seeing the “Cheers” to Jonathan Glazer, director of the movie The Zone of Interest, at revcom.us last week for his powerful and polarizing statement at the Oscars, I rented the movie. I watched it twice—the second time with a roomful of friends and comrades. I share that to encourage others to find collective ways to watch and then talk about this film.
Jonathan Glazer, director of The Zone of Interest, giving his acceptance speech for Best International Film at the 2024 Oscars.
A little background might be useful. The title, The Zone of Interest, is a literal translation of a German term Interessengebiet, which the Nazis used as a euphemism (a term that covers up the actual meaning of what is being talked about) for the area around the 15-square-mile Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Nazi-occupied southern Poland. That “Zone” kept people at a distance from where a million Jews were being worked to death, or gassed to death, and their bodies incinerated. It was intended to keep people from knowing what was going on, or at least provide them with space, literal and otherwise, to be in denial that Jews were being rounded up and killed, despite things they saw going on around them.
The movie focuses on people living inside the “Zone,” who did know what was going on. It is centered at the home of Rudolf Höss, commander of Auschwitz, and a notorious architect of the Nazi system of genocidal death camps.
The movie is mostly in German (as well as a little Polish and Yiddish), with English subtitles. But there is much more going on than the dialog. Watch and listen closely from the first minute! You’ll get it, quickly. And as the movie goes on, you’ll get it even more.
I think this is an enormously powerful movie. Analogies to Israel and Gaza are obvious. But even beyond that, there is a universally applicable moral divide you are led to confront in a world of savage inequalities enforced by the most depraved brutality and mass murder. And what “looking away” or obscene reveling in the spoils of all that does to one’s soul, and to humanity as a whole. I’ll leave it at that for now. I hope others will share their insights on this movie through correspondence to revcom.us.
The film is showing in theaters (a great place to engage people), and through streaming services. Find showings and streaming options at the film’s website.
