Let’s start this review by putting our hands on: The area of interest is a difficult film, it is difficult to write and it is difficult to look at it. But not for the reasons you would expect. Written and directed by Jonathan Glazer, he is freely inspired by the homonymous novel by Martin Amis, published in Italy Einaudi. He arrived on Rai 3 on January 23, 2026 (and for 2 days he returned to The Space rooms) with a view on Memory Day.
La zona d’interesse, una vita normale?
We are in Poland, 1943. Rudolf Hoss and his family (formed by his wife Hedwig and 4 children) live a seemingly normal life. Every day the head of the family gets up and goes to work. Every day the wife, assisted by the maid, takes care of the house, the garden and the children, takes tea and coffee with friends, buys furs and jewelry, welcomes the colleagues of the husband and is very proud of his small life. The only difference between them and any nuclear family? The wall of their garden borders that of the Auschwitz concentration camp, of which Rudolf is the director.
But the Hoss don’t mind. They do not notice (or have learned to ignore) black smoke, screams and shoots. They just want to continue their lives, whose flow is interrupted when Rudolf is promoted, and is obliged to move. But Hedwig is not willing to give up his life in the countryside, and remains where he is.
La banalità del male
When I saw this film at the cinema at the end of the screening, an unknown boy behind me, getting up in the dark room, said: “I’m cold in my bones.” It wasn’t about atmospheric temperature, but the film. The Zone of Interest is a frosty, aseptic film, which makes us only vaguely intuit the unheard violence that was happening at every moment beyond the high wall, adorned with barbed wire, but it never makes us forget. It’s smoky, wanted. He wants us to feel watched, uncomfortable, helpless.
He wants us to reflect on the banality and normality of evil, on his daily gestures, on his ridiculous attachment to tiny things, while outside is happening a historical fact, world-wide, which will choose who were good and bad and who will remember for so long. The way it filters everywhere, even in children’s behaviors. It’s very effective, and it does a certain effect.
E tutto il resto
In my opinion, Glazer goes further. His shots, fixed and aseptic, that go to create very long scenes and that place us in the position of the observers, are interrupted by electric discharges of scenes in negative, by unexpected jumps in the present. What do you mean? Perhaps, the director and screenwriter, in addition to confronting us the reversible banality of evil also wants us to reflect on the medium itself, on the cinema as an impotent and filtered window, desperately distant, on certain horrors, that we promised not to repeat but that now we are looking to happen again, real.
Il cast
Christian Friedel is Rudolf Hoss, head of family and military career. Weaks of character but very good at his work. Sandra Huller is the wife, Hedwig, happy with her life, who does not want to let go to the world for nothing. In the cast also Ralph Herforth (Oswald Pohl), Daniel Holzberg (Gerhard Maurer) and Sascha Maaz (Arthur Liebehenschel).
Article The area of interest, the intense film arrives tonight on TV proviene da Dituttounpop.it.
