A promotion causes Rudolf to move away from his home, causing a rift in his marriage, amongst other issues. In an instant, his perceived ascent becomes the first trip on his descent into the ugly blackness of history.

The real family the Höss clan is based upon lived in the Auschwitz camp. The film and novel get their title from the area that housed the many camps. It was called the Interessengebiet or “interest zone.” Focusing on the house and its proximity to the horrors does find an impact as the film goes on. As this horrible family has swim parties and birthday fun, the sounds of the camp make their way into the air, overpowering (for the audience) the falsely idyllic home life of Rudolph, Hedwig, and their family.

While mostly medium shots, Lukasz Zal’s camera work looks good and the excursions into Black and White give the visual tone a needed visceral bump. As smoke filled skies darken the shining sun, the symbolism is earned, causing the potency of Zal’s cinematography to hit harder than the film itself.

What Glazer gets right is showing how these people are addicted to their power. Hedwig and Rudolph discuss how they are living a life they have long dreamed of, signifying how removed they are from the wicked barbarism that funds their lives. It is in this monstrous disconnect where the film becomes something of a parable, as husband and wife represent the thousands who either participated in the Holocaust or the millions who chose to go on with their lives as it was happening around them.

What the film gets wrong is reducing the lives of the prisoners to ambient noise. While this tactic is certainly the point of Glazer’s chosen style, to focus solely on the monster while not giving the victims an ounce of proper representation feels disrespectful.

Glazer rights the ship in the film’s final act, where he chooses to take the overall tone (and what he says about Rudolph Höss) to an interesting level. I shall not reveal how the last half hour is handled, but its emotional impact comes to pass honestly and quite powerfully. It is here where proper respect is given to those who deserve it while the ugliness of those who helped execute the Holocaust will see them to their fates.

“The Zone of Interest” is a frustratingly empty motion picture for much of its short (only 1 hour and 45 minute) run time; too vacant in its drama and much too psychologically distant. Jonathan Glazer is more concerned with delivering a work that is consciously outside the filmmaking box, rather than concentrating on the power of the material. The finale is indeed compelling, but all that comes before is so vacuous, that it lessens the impact. While the film has received (mostly) praise and is likely to receive Oscar nominations, Glazer has constructed the type of film that fools an audience into believing they are seeing something groundbreaking. A deeper focus will open one’s eyes to how, with this film, Glazer’s style is self-congratulatory and obvious.

Not a bad film and I stand by the power of its final act, but taken as a whole, “The Zone of Interest” is one of the least original takes of that horrible time in history.

The Zone of Interest

Written & Directed by Jonathan Glazer (Adapting Martin Amis’s “The Zone of Interest”)

Starring Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller, Freya Kreutzkam, Ralph Herforth, Max Beck

PG-13, 105 Minutes, A24/Film 4/Access Entertainment