The Zone of Interest is a movie depicting the lifestyle of Auschwitz-Birkenau commandant Rudolf Höss and his family, who resided just beside the concentration camp. There isn’t really a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, the plot (or lack thereof) reveals how someone committing atrocities daily is devastatingly. . . normal. Höss is unremarkably human: He laughs with his wife, eats birthday cake, and reads stories to his children. Viewers are troubled with a philosophical question that Anthony Lane summarized astutely in the New Yorker: “Who will merit the lower circle of Hell: Höss, discussing the most efficient method for meeting his murderous quota, or Hedwig, serving coffee to friends?” We are reminded of Arendt’s “banality of evil” as we wonder how Höss and his wife are content near such horror.

I agree with Madeleine Kearns’s insightful analysis of the movie, and I won’t attempt to make the same arguments that she did so brilliantly. But I would like to expand on something she noted: 

The atrocities all happen off-screen and are referred to mostly indirectly. The ideological motivation of Nazi antisemitism is alluded to, but not discussed. The victims are not so much de-personalized as not personalized at all. The Polish servants are minor characters, but we don’t see any prisoners — they’re there, but invisible, functioning more like a soundtrack.

Indeed, plenty is out of sight but not out of mind. This is partially accomplished through our general (albeit insufficiently detailed) knowledge of the Holocaust, which allowed the filmmakers to discreetly allude to atrocities without dramatization. Rather than witnessing the horrific events themselves, we observe the management of their effects, like blood being washed off boots. 

There is, however, another “off-screen” quality of the movie that contributes to our unease: the soundtrack itself. The movie is as much an auditory experience as it is visual. It begins with “The Zone of Interest” written in bright white letters fading to black, as if introducing the theme of goodness slowly surrendering to evil. But there’s something less subtle: The haunting and ominous music by Mica Levi, which sounds almost like angels groaning. The letters fade for only a minute or two, but with the eerie tune, it feels as though an hour has passed in the theater. The music is suffocating, and I wanted to leave even though the movie had hardly begun. The prelude is a gesture, nudging us to notice the sound throughout the film — a clever instruction, since non-German-speaking viewers might allow reading subtitles to distract them from listening carefully. 

Within the first few minutes, we hear gunshots without seeing weapons fired or the human targets. The sounds continue throughout the movie but never interrupt dialogue. Once the final credits appeared onscreen, I wondered: How many gunshots did I miss? Surely, each one was an unjust death. As Kearns concluded her article, “The Zone of Interest is as much about us as it is about Nazis. At any time, the unthinkable can become ordinary.” The soundtrack reinforces that idea, enhancing the story of its real subjects while revealing something about ourselves. We begin to doubt our own moral authority as human screams, dog howls, and chugging trains blend seamlessly into the sounds of nature. The noticeable becomes unnoticeable — and it is our fault for being inattentive.

The movie’s ending credits are accompanied by chilling music that is arresting but also disorienting. There is wailing, although it sounds like both a choir and an ambulance. There are voices — but we don’t know who is talking or what they’re saying. It could be the Nazis giving orders or prisoners groaning in despair. There’s the orchestral adaptation of ominous footsteps — but we don’t know who is walking or the final destination. Is it Höss marching proudly in the warped glory of his devastating operation, or the victims walking toward the gas chambers that he had approved?

The concluding music is simply the acoustics of hell, but we can’t know whether we’re entering or leaving it. The anxiety-inducing music conveys a clear message: Get out. And so we leave the theater panicking. We should watch The Zone of Interest. But we should also listen to it.