Zone of Interest
It's not much of a movie-type movie. There is no real love interest, not much real conflict, internal or external, not much of a narrative arc, the characters don't seem to grow, to change, to learn anything, etc. etc. It's just a guy and his family--wife and four kids--his house, his grounds, his greenhouse, his flower and vegetable gardens, lovingly tended to by his wife.
There are familiar bits: some curtness with the domestics; children playing, sometimes bickering; the family picnicking, splashing around in a river; some gift-giving: a fur coat, some ladies undergarments; a family dog, a dopy black canine wandering through most scenes, curious, looking for attention, his tail thumping and his nails clicking on the floor.
The guy has a horse, which he loves.
The guy runs a factory, and he is dedicated and innovative, impimenting new technologies, new efficiencies, new designs and equipment. He is recognized, by his bosses, as an exemplary manager.
The factory is right next door to his home, its walls visible from the garden, its smoke stack always active in the background. The guy's name is Rudolf Höss, and the factory is Auschwitz.
How could this have happened. How could these cultured, civilized, modern twentieth century Europeans have done this?
"I wanted to dismantle the idea of them as anomalies, as almost supernatural," Johnathan Glazer, the writer and director, told the New York Times. "I wanted to show that these were crimes committed by Mr. and Mrs. Smith at No. 26."
Glazer also said that at times the despair was overwhelming. "There were points I really thought I couldn’t make the film. [...] I kept ringing my producer, Jim, and saying: ‘I’m getting out. I can’t do this." These moments may be represented, in the film, by the screen turning black, for a time, before returning to Höss and his family.
How could this have happened? It's not a question the movie addresses, not a question that can be easily answered. Other than: I don't know. But it did.
It is a movie, like Schindler's List, that can divide your life between the time before you saw it and the time after you saw it. It is a movie I will never forget.