From the opening scene, chills and nausea run through the viewer.
“The Area of Interest” by Jonathan Glazer begins with a very pretty bucolic sequence.
A small family, presumably German and from the 1940s, picnics near a river in a joyful atmosphere, the children splashing around in the water.
On the screen, tiny particles lit by the sun float in the air, reinforcing the poetic effect of the whole.
And then we understand that the particles in question come from the bodies of the deportees from Auschwitz being consumed a few meters away.
The intense unease will grow: the feature film tells the daily life of the family of Rudolf Höss, commander of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps (Poland) from 1940 to 1944. “The Zone of Interest” in question , this is the name that the Germans gave to a 40 km perimeter around the camps.
Jonathan Glazer's bias is astounding: to show everything that happens in the house, not the extermination at work in the camp, which we can see in the distance: barbed wire, turrets, smoke from the trains which discharge thousands of Jewish deportees, still other smoke, that of the crematorium ovens.
The filmmaker therefore focuses on Höss, his wife (remarkably played by a chilling Sandra Hüller), their five children.
And nothing is spared us: opulent family meals, decoration of their villa, gardening work, scenes where the kids are having fun in the small swimming pool - with the scrolls of cremations in the background -, the mother trying furs plundered from deportees, meetings in the living room with engineers and dignitaries who extol the merits of ever more efficient ovens.
The deportees are not completely absent from the picture, firstly via the soundtrack which distills their cries as well as the terrifying noises of the exterminating machine in progress.
But also via the “staff” serving the Höss family, gardeners in striped pajamas or maids at whom the lady of the house likes to yell.
Jonathan Glazer presses where it hurts
Jonathan Glazer, renowned as much for his audacity as for his radical approach to directing, hits where it hurts.
And achieves, with a production of demonic precision - the devil is in the details, they say - a film of great beauty.
The beauty filmed, here, in all its horror, and which earned the film a Grand Prix (the Palme d'Or) at Cannes, a slew of awards in international ceremonies, and five nominations for the Oscars to come.
It is obviously this contrast between a light, idyllic family cocoon and the abomination of what is taking place just a stone's throw away which constitutes the heart of the filmmaker's intention: to show the trivialization of evil.
A demonstration that the spectator will have to carry out on their own, but to which Glazer still provides some keys.
Not showing disturbing images results in even more disturbing: what is more horrifying than images of crematorium ovens are those of their chief craftsmen caught in the act of carelessness, indifference, and the banality of everyday life.
Atrocious.
A harrowing film at the heart of this Nazi tribe
The humanization of this small Nazi family of the camp manager refers, ruthlessly and with incredible cinematographic power, to the dehumanization then underway of the 1.1 million dead of Auschwitz.
In this regard, we remember, after leaving the Cannes screening, thinking “luckily there is the dog, he is the only human character to cling to”.
Not so paradoxical sentence: the family dog, with its domestic animal attitudes, its yapping, its way of scratching at doors, seems the only one to display “normal” behavior at the heart of this Nazi tribe.
In this grueling but exceptional and striking film, the others encounter horror every second...
Editor's note:
4.5/5
“The Area of Interest”,
British historical drama by Jonathan Glazer, with Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller... 1h45.