The Zone of Interest

 

The Zone of Interest (2023)

The Boring, Mundane Reality of Evil

★★½☆☆

Watched 18 Mar 2024 — A polarizing, experimental look at the "banality of evil" that often feels as stagnant as the lives it depicts.

Directed by Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest is a film whose impact depends entirely on how the viewer interprets its lack of traditional narrative. On the surface, we watch the insignificant minutiae of a Nazi family's daily life. The artistic weight comes from the unsettling rumblings and screams of misery persisting in the background from the adjacent death camp. While it effectively illustrates how humans can become desensitized to suffering for the sake of self-preservation, the repetitive nature of these points makes the 1 hour and 47 minute runtime feel significantly longer.

"Evil can be as boring as a family picnic, or as mundane as washing the dishes... After awhile, one almost wants to beg and scream at the film to give us something worth watching and noteworthy. But that's the point."

— Ray Manukay

🎬 Cast & Crew

• Director: Jonathan Glazer
• Starring: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller
• Cinematographer: Łukasz Żal
• Studio: [A24](https://a24films.com)

The Vision

Glazer’s vision is undeniably "pretentious" and experimental, eschewing standard cinematic immediacy for a fly-on-the-wall perspective. He uses a static, multi-camera setup to capture uninteresting, familiar family events in a beautiful, idyllic setting—juxtaposed against the unseen horrors over the garden wall. The goal is to reinforce the idea that humanity can be selfish and ultimately cruel through institutional desensitization. However, by repeating the same morbid points in uninteresting ways, the film risks alienating viewers who expect a nuanced, complex narrative or character development.

🎬 Cinephile Fun Facts

• The "Hidden" Crew: To achieve a naturalistic feel, Glazer set up [up to 10 cameras](https://www.theguardian.com) in the house and operated them remotely, so the actors were alone in the set without a visible crew.
• Audio Horror: The "background" sounds of the camp were created by sound designer Johnnie Burn, who compiled a library of [industrial and human sounds](https://www.nytimes.com) to play throughout the film without ever showing the source.
• Oscar Success: The film won the Academy Award for [Best International Feature Film](https://www.oscars.org) and Best Sound at the 2024 Oscars.

✅ Pros

• Masterful and unsettling use of background sound.
• Powerful theme concerning the desensitization of humanity.
• Visually idyllic cinematography juxtaposed with grim reality.

❌ Cons

• Lacks a strong, thrilling narrative or complex characters.
• Runtime feels much longer than it is due to pacing.
• Points can feel repetitive and "pretentious."

🏆 Final Verdict

A film designed to be infuriating and mundane to mirror the boring nature of evil. If you value irony and thematic atmosphere over story, this is for you; otherwise, it may feel like a three-minute PSA stretched to feature length.

View on Letterboxd