The Zone of Interest 4K 2023 Ultra HD 2160p

Storyline
German-occupied Poland, summer of 1943. More than anything, Hedwig, an indefatigable mother of five, wants to keep her well-organised life as is. After all, she has worked her fingers to the bone to create a fragrant slice of paradise to raise her children, and nothing will change that. If only her husband, the distinguished SS officer and Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoess, weren't always burdened by his duties. But perfection is a fleeting illusion. As the oblivious life of the commandant's wife unravels in cloudless bliss, Rudolf finds himself swamped with work, saddled with testing a new ventilation design and overseeing the installation of a highly effective Topf and Sons multi-muffle, non-stop incineration oven system. Indeed, it's hard to imagine that just a hair's breadth away from the peaceful and idyllic Höss household, the unimaginable horrors of the Final Solution were unfolding in full swing. And as noisome fumes and muffled, blood-curdling noises blemish Hedwig's fragrant utopia, a question emerges. When evil becomes banal and apathy requires no effort, what separates man from beast?

User Review
The Zone of Interest takes a unique angle in approaching the Holocaust. Certainly an angle I haven't seen before in a film. This different approach gives the film a really sinister quality that frames the evils of the Holocaust in a new and terrifying way.

It achieves this approach through stark juxtaposition. It compares the relatively banal, matter-of-fact homemaking of the Hoss family against the utterly horrendous tragedy being perpetrated just over their garden wall. By doing this, it is not an overly graphic or in your face film. Instead, the violence and evil is primarily heard and not seen, as the horrifying sounds of the camp constantly bleed into the Hoss family home. It is in this way that the film makes its mark. To have such tragedy and horror ignored by this family and their guests. To normalise the mass murder over the garden wall. The glib and matter of fact way it is treated by them all. That is where the horror lies.

Whilst this is all a very effective way of framing the horrors of the Holocaust, I do think this film lacks any storytelling merit. There is no real plot to speak of, so once the point the film is making has been made it is easy to want it to be over so as not to sit with these evil characters and horrendous events for too long.

Then again it is a tricky point because I think this is definitely a story worth telling. Looking at the Holocaust from this angle to understand how normalised it became to certain people is vital to reflect on, but I'm not sure if a feature film was necessary to convey this.

So overall, I thoroughly appreciate what this film was doing and the angle it took. The direction is class in creating this juxtaposition and drilling this point home, but beyond it's core message there is nothing in this film to get stuck into. No real plot. No characters you want to understand or connect with. As a result it feels like it overextended itself as a film, but delivers it's message nonetheless.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (67.8 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1

Info Audio

#German: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
#English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0

Info Subtitles

English, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French (Parisian), German, Italian, Chinese (Traditional), Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish (Castilian), Spanish (Latin American), Swedish.