Winner Grand Prix 2023 Cannes Film Festival
Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Under the Skin) won the Grand Prix at Cannes this year for this hunting movie about Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife, who strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to Auschwitz concentration camp.
Based on the novel by Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest weds banal and overt acts of evil with unforgettable reminders of resistance. We reside inside the family’s encampment, with background voices of ghost-like prisoners muffled by the perpetrator’s quotidian musings. At one point, Höss’ wife Hedwig and her atrocious friends joke about their new luxury goods, received from Canada — the nickname of the storage facilities where such items, after being confiscated, were stored — at the demise of their former neighbours.
Hauntingly scored by Mica Levi and shot by Łukasz Żal (Cold War, Perth Festival 2019), this chilling contemplation on the everyday face of evil will stay with you for a lifetime.