“The Zone of Interest”

My last review was about Willy Wonka. The one before that was about a Disney cartoon – it featured magical wishes, power ballads, and a pet star.

This one is about Nazis. Tone change.

The Nazis in question are – or were – real Nazis. In other words, this is based on a true story. It’s about the Höss family.

And, in a way, the story is presented as one about a very normal, loving family who is finding their place in the world, enjoying their home and struggling for work-life balance. The movie opens with the family lounging by the water in an idyllic countryside, kids swimming and playing and having a good time. You hear a babbling stream, wind rustling through the leaves, birds chirping and what sounds like a woodpecker tapping on a tree.

But it’s not a woodpecker. It’s machine gun fire.

Later, after the Höss family gathers up their blankets and picnic baskets and ambles home to their charming cottage, they have supper together, the kids play in the yard, and the mother, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), tends the garden. Her garden is beautiful. It’s got flowers and vegetables. There’s even a greenhouse. It’s enclosed on all sides by a fence – one side taller than the others, making the garden feel like a private retreat.

One side is taller than the others because it is also the wall to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The next day, the family’s father, Rudolf (Christian Friedel), gets ready for work. He looks important. He doesn’t have much of a commute – he saunters off his front porch, out the front gate, and takes a quick right turn into work.

We never see the insides of his “office,” but we know what it is: Rudolf is commandant of Auschwitz.

At the end of the day, Rudolf returns home to his family. Everything seems so perfectly normal. You can hear the toot of a locomotive in the distance and the crackling voices of people on the street. You see a plume of smoke from a nearby factory punctuating the brilliant sunset.

But the locomotive is carrying prisoners. The people on the street are murderous guards and their victims. The smoke isn’t coming from ironworks or some such; it’s coming from a crematorium. The Höss family’s servants, and delivery boys, and shoe shiners are Jews, held captive. Their garden is fertilized with human ashes.

Meanwhile the kids play dice, mom weeds, the boys wrestle and they all celebrate daddy’s birthday with presents and a cake. Their worries, when they have them, are about visiting in-laws, potential job transfers and what’s for lunch.

They know what’s going on. Every now and then there’s a subtle acknowledgment of it, almost an aside, as if it’s somewhere between a minor nuisance and something to be proud of. It’s just like they live in a somewhat noisier part of a great neighborhood. You get used to it.

“The Zone of Interest” is all about background and foreground. In the foreground is a normal family. In the background is unspeakable horror. It’s a remarkable juxtaposition – to see barbed wire on a garden fence, billowing smoke against the otherwise vacant sky and armed guards walking serenely down the lane. Again, we never see the inside of the camp. But we know. Just like they knew.

Sight is one thing. Sound is another. And the sound – the editing, the score, the soundtrack – of “The Zone of Interest” is its masterstroke. The woodpecker that turns out to be machineguns, the bustling crowd that turns out to be screaming victims of genocide, the train that turns out to be a death transport and a factory whose fuel is human bodies – it’s all the background noise that the Höss family tunes out as if it were traffic or construction or the hum of an air conditioner. Yet it’s there. Pay attention and it’s unmistakable. Those are screams. That’s an oven.

“The Zone of Interest” is a brilliantly conceived movie – not just about a historic tragedy, but about the psychology of those who willingly took part in it. You wonder how they could do it. Well, here’s an answer: They just went about their lives. As long as it’s on the other side of the fence, not in their backyard, it’s none of their business. That’s how they did it. That’s no doubt how people have done it since and do it today.

“The Zone of Interest” is rated PG-13 for thematic material, some suggestive material and smoking.