‘We’ll be talking about this Auschwitz film for decades to come’

Donald Clarke on The Zone of Interest

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Sandra Huller as Hedwig Hoss in The Zone of Interest. Photograph: PA
Sandra Huller as Hedwig Hoss in The Zone of Interest. Photograph: PA

In Jonathan Glazer’s multi-Oscar nominated and breathtaking new film, The Zone of Interest, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), commandant of the Auschwitz camp, and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) live an idyllic life in their beautiful house and lush garden with their children.

We are, as Irish Times chief film correspondent Donald Clarke explains, “dumped into their disconcertingly ordinary world”. Over the garden wall is the death camp and while we hear sounds and see forbidding buildings and smoke-billowing chimneys we are never shown the horrors or the Jewish victims.

Clarke also explains the power of Glazer’s filming methods and why this Holocaust film has become such a critically acclaimed hit. Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey.

Bernice Harrison

Bernice Harrison

Bernice Harrison is an Irish Times journalist and cohost of In the News podcast