AREA OF INTEREST
Score: 5
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Cast: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller, Freya Kreutkam, Ralph Herforth
Year: 2023
Premiere: January 19, 2024
At first glance, the scene seems like a postcard from a dream: a sunlit garden in full bloom, a lush greenhouse, and a grand house where a family gathers to celebrate. Yet a sharper glance reveals the danger hidden just beyond the frame. A tall concrete wall wrapped in barbed wire surrounds the veranda, a chimney above it sending smoke into the sky. The same house sits next to the site of one of history’s darkest chapters, where Rudolf Höss, an infamous SS commander, and his wife Hedwig are shown living their daily lives as thousands are displaced, enslaved, and murdered nearby. The stark contrast between domestic happiness and horror sits just a few meters away.
This is the first feature in a decade from British director Jonathan Glazer. It confronts one of humanity’s most brutal atrocities while also probing intimate themes like marital complicity, care for loved ones, and the quiet rewards earned through diligence. Glazer tunes the viewer to the rhythms and routines of Höss’s home life, highlighting a disturbing sense of normalcy that sustains a moral blindness.
Gradually, Hedwig’s complicity comes into view as prisoners’ clothing, recently laundered and repurposed, appears near the doorway. Wheelbarrows carry provisions to the house while children collect dental gold teeth. Yet the true barrier remains unseen. The line between what is visible and hidden, between audible screams and the clamor of trains, between law and consent, plays a central role in this work. The film requires the audience to acknowledge a painful history to grasp the looming horror, turning the composition into a stark cinematic meditation on how such horrors could unfold.
Glazer’s method is austere: he opts not to rely on overt melodrama but to shoot with a sense of distance, even from the actors. The mood mirrors Höss’s own detachment toward Auschwitz. The characters know what lies beyond the wall, yet their gaze remains turned away. They do not see people as human beings, and even the odor of crematoria fades into the background. The mind can shield itself from the moral sting of its actions, a phenomenon Hannah Arendt described as the banality of evil. Yet this film depicts a more personal form of disengagement, a self-imposed numbness that distances viewers from the consequences of the acts depicted. How close are we to that garden, that greenhouse? How much suffering beyond our immediate circle do we choose to ignore?
To propose an answer feels almost as daunting as the cinematic experience itself. The film compels a rare kind of clarity, balancing the unsettling cruelty with the routine calm of daily life. Its morality and aesthetics invite scrutiny, even as the story tests the viewer’s own sense of restraint and responsibility. The result is a documentary-like probe that lingers long after the image fades, a reminder that history is not a distant past but a living, undeniable record of what humans can do to one another. The work asks us to confront the distance between knowledge and empathy, and to acknowledge how easily ordinary life can coexist with extraordinary atrocities. It is a stark invitation to reflect on where the line lies between comfortable privacy and moral accountability.
A central question persists: what are we willing to notice, and what do we choose to overlook? The film’s clinical restraint heightens the impact of its revelations, ensuring that the horror remains both precise and profoundly personal. It challenges viewers to measure their own moral compass against the quiet, everyday moments that frame it. In the end, the film does not merely recount a history of cruelty; it interrogates the conditions that allow such events to endure in our collective memory—and in our conscience.
Cited reflections on the themes within this work emphasize its insistence that readers confront uncomfortable truths without ceding to sensationalism. For scholars and general audiences alike, the film remains a potent case study in how cinema can render ethical questions with unflinching honesty, producing a lasting impact that extends far beyond a single viewing experience. The question, ultimately, is whether the audience will let these memories recede or let them guide a more mindful approach to the present. [Citation: Film Studies Review], [Citation: Historic Memory Journal]