The Zone of Interest (2023)

Film theorists often distinguish between two types of space - one that is visible on screen and the other that's beyond it. 'The Zone of Interest' follows this theory to its core to deliver a hauntingly brilliant piece of cinema.

There's nothing remarkable happening on screen for most of the film apart from the mundane acts of a German family living beside Auschwitz. That is, until you stop looking at what is shown and start to feel what's not. The extreme realism of the film, coupled with the chilling sounds of screams and gunshots in the background, almost forces you to look beyond the screen and imagine the horrors taking place just behind the walls.

Jonathan Glazer insists that we see the Nazis as not an evil moster, thus separating ourselves from them, but to draw out our similarities. That the most brutal atrocities emerge from the ordinary men who choose to look past sufferings.

He urges us to reflect on our own tendency to ignore the sufferings that surround us, much like the family did, and to realize that such horrors never occur in a vacuum.