Ten years after his last film, Jonathan Glazer returns with The Zone of Interest. It's an exacting masterpiece that settles into a domestic rhythm that is horrifying in its gestures at normalcy. The Zone of Interest is based on Martin Amis' novel of the same name, but many of its similarities end there as the director instead focuses on Rudolf Höss, the longest serving commandant of Auschwitz. Höss and his family live next to the concentration camp, their idyllic garden bordered by concrete walls laced with barbed wire. The contrast is striking, but it's one that most of the film's characters ignore — they focus on the smell of flowers in the garden instead of the stench of smoke billowing from chimneys or the sound of their children's laughter rather than the screams and barking orders from soldiers and the people they are torturing.
