"The Zone of Interest": A Chilling Holocaust Masterpiece

"The Zone of Interest," directed by Jonathan Glazer, is a hollow and self-aggrandizing art-film exercise set in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Loosely based on the novel by Martin Amis, the film focuses on the day-to-day routine of the camp's commandant and his family, keeping the horrors of the extermination camp at an oblique remove. Glazer's use of art-film conventions creates a sense of intellectual distance but ultimately fails to provide a meaningful exploration of the Holocaust, reducing the suffering of its victims to background noise.