"There are two films: the one you see, and the one you hear. The second one is the one that stays with you."
"Focusing on the everyday domesticity of the Auschwitz commandant’s family might only reflect the horror indirectly, but the film pulls the banality of evil into pin-sharp focus"
Directed by Jonathan Glazer, *The Zone of Interest* (2023) redefines the Holocaust cinema genre by focusing entirely on the "Zone of Interest"—the 40-square-kilometer area surrounding the Auschwitz concentration camp. This application explores how Glazer uses formalist detachment, revolutionary sound design, and the psychological concept of normalization to portray the domestic lives of Rudolf and Hedwig Höss.
Though it’s been seven months, I remain haunted by “The Zone of Interest.” When I first watched writer-director Jonathan Glazer’s radical take on the Holocaust back in May, I couldn’t quite pinpoint what was so startling about it. There have been many films on this horrific chapter in history—from “Night and Fog” to “Schindler's List” to “The Pianist,” and as recently as “Occupied City”—all asking the viewer to bear witness to unfathomable suffering under a genocidal regime’s brutality. It would be a mistake, however, to interpret Glazer’s adaptation of Martin Amis’ same-titled novel as him asking viewers to simply witness.
It’s a disturbing work, guided by a discomforting sense of immaculateness that chills the viewer. It is the sanitation the film performs, which speaks to the now, in a way few Holocaust films have done before.
You could, of course, accuse Glazer’s film of merely being a formal exercise. He challenges himself to not only work purely through atmosphere, but also takes the risk of telling this story from a German perspective. Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) is the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. When he first appears on-screen, he is with his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and their children, relaxing at the riverside, in a verdant field surrounded by lush mountains. Soon we are introduced to their dream house, a tall concrete structure surrounded by a lavish yard and seemingly even taller walls. On the other side of these barriers is the camp itself. Outside of a single shot—a low angle of Rudolf, framed by black smoking billowing in the background—we never really see inside the camp.
Much has also been made of the banality of evil. The Höss family live next door to ongoing genocide yet never comment on the horrific screams or the smell of death nearby. Thus, there is an expected coldness which seeps into the film’s lack of sentimentality. They raise their children under a pretense of normalcy—Rudolf tells them late-night bedtime stories, takes them horseback riding, and participates in other pastoral pursuits. Because of the emotional blankness, a burden falls on Friedel and Hüller to chart a tricky course: How human can you make someone who is clearly inhuman?
The close correlation speaks to the repulsively intimate relationship Rudolf and his family have with destruction. They profit off an entire people’s death in unspeakable ways: In one scene, one of Rudolf’s sons has a flashlight in bed. But he’s not rifling at a comic book in the dark; he’s rummaging through his collection of gold teeth. In another scene, Hedwig receives a fur coat. She tries on the fine pelt, twisting her body to catch her every angle in the mirror. In one of the pockets, she discovers the previous owner's lipstick; in the next scene she tries the lipstick on. Their easeful proximity to murder is thrown in stark relief when Hedwig’s mother arrives. At first, her mother is impressed by their “scenic” home. “You really have landed on your feet, my child,” she says to a proud Hedwig. But when the emanating sounds and smells become apparent to Hedwig’s mother, she reacts in a way that shocks Hedwig.
As much as Glazer’s film is about a specific moment in time, it’s equally concerned with how history records tragedy. Consider when Rudolf is transferred from Auschwitz to Oranienburg; Hedwig wants to stay in the dream house, in the reality she’s crafted for herself. Rudolf on the other hand, for the first time, openly speaks on the phone to his wife about murder without softening the language. Her reaction is grim; his words barely register. “It’s in the middle of the night and I need to be in bed,” she disturbingly replies
Jonathan Glazer & Team on The Zone of Interest and the Ethics of Representation | NYFF61
Jonathan Glazer (born March 26, 1965) is an acclaimed English filmmaker and director whose work spans feature films, music videos, and commercial advertising. Known for his meticulous visual precision, haunting sound design, and thematic exploration of alienation, violence, and humanity, Glazer is widely regarded as one of modern cinema's most distinctive auteur directors.
Signature Style & Directorial Method
"I don't want to show the horror; I want you to feel the presence of the horror." — Jonathan Glazer
Observational Detachment & Multi-Camera Rigging: Glazer frequently strips away traditional cinematic melodrama in favor of semi-documentary precision. For Under the Skin, he rigged hidden cameras inside a modified van as Scarlett Johansson drove around Glasgow interacting with non-actors. For The Zone of Interest, he embedded up to ten fixed, remotely controlled cameras inside a built set, allowing actors to improvise naturally without lighting crews or camera operators in their line of sight.
Sound Design as the Primary Narrative Driver: Audio in Glazer's films does not merely support the visuals—it often contradicts or overpowers them. Collaborating with sound designer Johnnie Burn on The Zone of Interest, Glazer constructed a film with two distinct layers: the serene family life visible on screen, and the unbearable horror heard strictly through ambient background noise (screams, gunshots, industrial furnaces).
Spatial & Visual Formalism: Glazer's background in music videos (including Radiohead's "Street Spirit" and UNKLE's "Rabbit in the Headlights") informs his stark composition, controlled color palettes, and deliberate framing that treat physical spaces as living, breathing characters.
Cinematic Career & Key Feature Films
| Film | Year | Genre / Theme | Key Technical & Narrative Hallmark |
| Sexy Beast | 2000 | Crime / Psychological | Sun-drenched neo-noir featuring Ben Kingsley's explosive performance and surrealist dream sequences. |
| Birth | 2004 | Psychological Drama | Eerie, hypnotic meditation on grief and obsession, shot with haunting tracking shots by Harris Savides. |
| Under the Skin | 2013 | Sci-Fi / Existential | Sci-fi masterpiece using hidden cameras to observe human empathy and alienation through an alien lens. |
| The Zone of Interest | 2023 | Historical Drama | Oscar-winning Holocaust drama examining complicity and the "banality of evil" without ever depicting explicit violence inside Auschwitz. |
Music Videos & Commercials
Before transitioning to feature films, Glazer was one of the premier directors in the Golden Era of music videos and high-concept television advertising during the 1990s.
Iconic Music Videos
Radiohead: "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" (1996) and "Karma Police" (1997)
Jamiroquai: "Virtual Insanity" (1996) — Famous for its moving floor effect and minimalist room set, winning Video of the Year at the MTV VMAs.
Massive Attack: "Karmacoma" (1995)
The White Stripes: "The Denial Twist" (2005)
Major Commercials
Guinness – "Surfer" (1999): Widely voted in industry polls as one of the greatest commercials ever made, combining black-and-white visuals of surfers tackling massive waves transformed into crashing horses, set to a monologue from Moby-Dick.
Stella Artois – "Devil's Island"
Nike – "Parklife"
The Aesthetics of Detachment
Glazer utilizes a "Big Brother" style of filmmaking. The production installed up to 10 hidden cameras throughout the house and garden, allowing actors to improvise and move naturally without a visible crew. This creates a clinical, fly-on-the-wall perspective that refuses to "dramatize" the Holocaust in the traditional Hollywood sense.
Fixed Perspectives: The camera rarely moves. It observes the Höss family with the coldness of a security camera.
The Wall: The physical wall separating the garden from the camp is a constant visual motif. We never see inside the camp; instead, we see the tops of chimneys, steam from trains, and the orange glow of the crematoria at night.
Sound as the Primary Narrator
While the visuals focus on the mundane—gardening, tea parties, and children playing—the audio track (designed by Johnnie Burn) provides the horror. The film employs a dual-narrative structure where the eyes see "civilization" and the ears hear "genocide."
Low-Frequency Hum: A constant, industrial thrum pervades the film, representing the machinery of the camp.
Incidental Horror: Distant screams, gunshots, and the mechanical roar of the ovens are treated as background noise by the characters, forcing the audience to confront the psychological phenomenon of normalization.
The Banality of Evil
The film is perhaps the most literal cinematic translation of Hannah Arendt’s concept of the "banality of evil." Rudolf Höss is not depicted as a mustache-twirling villain, but as a middle-manager concerned with efficiency and career advancement.
Domestic Ambition: Hedwig Höss is portrayed as the "Queen of Auschwitz," more concerned with the growth of her dahlias and the quality of looted furs than the mass murder occurring over her fence.
The Thermal Imaging Sequences: Glazer breaks the realism with night-vision sequences showing a local girl hiding food for prisoners. These scenes, shot with thermal cameras, act as the film's only "light"—a moral counterpoint to the darkness of the Höss household.
Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest features one of the most formally radical sound designs in modern cinema history. Created over a three-year process with supervising sound designer Johnnie Burn, the film’s audio architecture isn't just an atmospheric layer—it is the film’s primary narrative engine.
1. The "Two Films" Architecture
Glazer conceptualized the project as two distinct films running in parallel:
Film 1 (The Visual Track): A mundane, pastel-toned period drama following Commandant Rudolf Höss, his wife Hedwig, and their children as they garden, host guests, and swim in the river.
Film 2 (The Audio Track): An invisible, unrelenting sonic landscape documenting the systematic genocide taking place directly over the concrete wall.
By keeping the camera strictly focused on the domestic life of the perpetrators, Glazer turns the viewer into an "earwitness" rather than an eyewitness. Because human psychology naturally tries to connect what it sees with what it hears, your mind is forced to build the missing visual horror in real time.
2. Historical & Spatial Acoustic Mapping
Burn spent over a year constructing a 600-page sonic research document built from survivor testimonies, camp logs, and historical archives. Every background sound was designed around strict physical and geographical acoustics:
Distance & Physics: Rather than pulling generic effects from a sound library, Burn recorded gunfire (using period-accurate World War I and II weapons) from exact real-world distances—such as 120 yards away on firing ranges—to recreate how soundwaves bounced off concrete and traveled across open air into the Höss garden.
Authentic Sourcing over Foley Studio Dubbing: Screams and shouts were not recorded by voice actors on a soundstage. Instead, Burn’s team captured live ambient acoustics across Europe—including late-night city streets, Paris political rallies, and lower-division European football matches where crowd shouting carries unvarnished human adrenaline.
Historical Detail: Audio elements were matched to historical records down to the smallest detail—the specific clatter of wooden clogs on gravel, the hum of electric fences, roll-call bells, and guards revving motorcycle engines outside gas chambers to drown out screams.
3. The Industrial Low-Frequency Drone
The foundation of the entire audio mix is a continuous, low-frequency mechanical rumble.
Constructing the Furnace: Created by layering pitched recordings of wind blowing down chimney flues with fanned fireplace embers, this constant bass tone represents the uninterrupted operation of the camp’s crematoria and steam plants.
Psychological Function: To the Höss family, this sound acts as white noise—a background hum they have trained themselves to tune out completely. For the audience, the low frequencies trigger sub-perceptual dread, maintaining physical anxiety even during idyllic family scenes.
4. Production Rigor & Rejection of Cinematic Gloss
To match cinematographer Łukasz Żal’s multi-camera setup (which used up to ten fixed, hidden cameras to remove crew presence), production sound mixer Tarn Willers deployed over 40 static directional microphones and hidden radio mics around the set house and grounds.
| Technical Element | Creative Execution | Impact on the Viewership |
| Zero ADR | No dialogue was re-recorded or polished in post-production studios. | Preserves the raw, unvarnished acoustic reality of the physical environment. |
| No Actor Reactions | If an actor accidentally reacted or turned toward a background sound cue, that audio pass was discarded. | Emphasizes the horrifying compartmentalization of characters entirely accustomed to mass murder next door. |
| Flattened Output | Spatial Dolby Atmos effects were folded into a drier, less surround-heavy presentation. | Avoids Hollywood "cinematic polish," giving the audio the stark weight of a historical document |
5. Acoustic Priming: Mica Levi’s Score
Traditional musical scoring is almost entirely omitted during the narrative, with one vital exception.
Before any image appears, the film begins with three minutes of complete darkness accompanied by composer Mica Levi’s dark, pitch-bending vocal overture. This blind opening deprives the viewer of visual stimulation, forcing your ears to recalibrate and establishing upfront that listening will be your primary way of navigating the film.
For a deeper look into how these audio layers were gathered and mixed, watch this Johnnie Burn interview on The Zone of Interest sound design, where the sound designer breaks down his research process and field recording techniques.
How does Jonathan Glazer's formalist visual style and thematic detachment compare to Stanley Kubrick and Michael Haneke?
Jonathan Glazer, Stanley Kubrick, and Michael Haneke form a triumvirate of cinematic coldness—directors who reject conventional Hollywood sentimentality in favor of formal precision, clinical observation, and moral interrogation.
While all three use visual formalism to distance the audience emotionally, they do so for completely different aesthetic and philosophical reasons.
Comparative Matrix
| Director | Visual Philosophy | Primary Camera Style | Thematic Goal |
| Stanley Kubrick | The Godlike Architect | Symmetrical, one-point perspective, smooth tracking shots | To expose human helplessness within grand, indifferent systems or cosmic fates. |
| Michael Haneke | The Clinical Prosecutor | Static long takes, surveillance framing, refusal of emotional cuts | To confront the audience’s voyeurism and expose bourgeois moral decay. |
| Jonathan Glazer | The Biological Observer | Fixed multi-camera arrays, hidden lenses, observational distance | To study human behavior like laboratory specimens under a microscope. |
1. Camera Position: Symmetry vs. Surveillance vs. Laboratory
Kubrick (Architectural Fate): Kubrick’s famous one-point perspective creates an artificial, immaculate world where characters are trapped inside geometric corridors or grand institutional rooms. The camera feels like an omnipotent observer watching tragic, flawed humans march toward their own undoing.
Haneke (Interrogative Surveillance): Haneke uses long, static wide shots that mimic security cameras or uninvited witnesses. By refusing to cut to close-ups during moments of distress, he denies the audience emotional release, forcing us to sit in uncomfortable silence.
Glazer (The Non-Human Lens): Glazer takes detachment one step further by attempting to remove the "director's hand" entirely. In Under the Skin, hidden cameras recorded non-actors to capture authentic human interaction from an alien's perspective. In The Zone of Interest, he set up up to ten fixed cameras without a crew in the room, creating an automated "Big Brother" rig that captures human compartmentalization without dramatic emphasis.
2. Treatment of Violence & Spectator Complicity
The Key Distinction: Kubrick stylizes violence; Haneke scolds you for watching it; Glazer makes you build it in your own mind.
Kubrick (A Clockwork Orange): Violence is choreographed and operatic—set to classical music. It forces the audience to confront their own aesthetic attraction to brutality and disorder.
Haneke (Funny Games): Haneke actively punishes the viewer for wanting violent entertainment. He famously breaks the fourth wall (literally rewinding the film when a villain gets shot) to scold the audience for participating in cinematic voyeurism.
Glazer (The Zone of Interest): Glazer avoids metacinematic tricks and never depicts the violence inside Auschwitz on screen. Instead, he uses the visual track for mundane family life and the audio track for the camp's horrors. He trusts the audience's historical memory to complete the picture, making our passive viewing an uncomfortable mirror of the characters' passive complicity.
3. Emotional Temperature: Irony vs. Guilt vs. Alienation
Kubrick’s Irony: Kubrick maintains a dark, satirical detachment (Dr. Strangelove, Barry Lyndon). Humans are absurd creatures driven by primal instincts who build machines and systems they cannot control.
Haneke’s Guilt: Haneke’s detachment is rooted in moral philosophy. He views cinema as a tool to strip away middle-class denial, forcing viewers to confront hidden guilt, historical denial, or systemic cruelty.
Glazer’s Existential Alienation: Glazer’s coldness stems from a desire to make the familiar feel profoundly alien. Whether viewing human empathy through an extraterrestrial (Under the Skin) or extreme evil through the lens of domestic routine (The Zone of Interest), his formalist restraint resets our perception so we see human behavior with fresh, unconditioned eyes.
"There are two films: the one you see, and the one you hear. The second one is the one that stays with you." — Jonathan Glazer
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