On the day I planned to see The Zone of Interest, I was notified I had been selected for a two-week program in Germany and Poland through the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE). The nonprofit — which has taught young professionals across law, medicine, business, and other categories about personal ethics and decisionmaking for 15 years now — utilizes the Holocaust as a lens through which to reflect on personal and professional responsibility. Morality can be complicated, particularly in the workplace, and the horrors of the Nazi genocide during World War II are a prime example of how countless people deflecting ownership and responsibility can create a culture of complicity with deadly outcomes. 

What better frame of reference to have in mind for watching writer and director Jonathan Glazer's newest masterpiece, which adapts Martin Amis's 2014 novel of the same name. The film is a singularly disturbing success, putting a mundane workman's face to the atrocities committed during the Holocaust.

The core plot of The Zone of Interest is intentionally simple. Rudolf Höss is the commandant of Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp in Poland. We never see his daily work inside the camp, just the modest but pleasant life he has built for himself and his family outside of the Auschwitz walls. His house is clean and his yard manicured; his wife, Hedwig, is content with her homemaking responsibilities; his children splash in the nearby river, slide into the backyard pool, and scamper around in carefree youth. Various happenings pepper the story — a visit from his stepmother, a promotion at work, a matter-of-fact affair — but none seem to rattle or change Höss. His dutiful professionalism, fatherly concern for his wife and children, and career ambitions are unshaken throughout the film, and after a concise 95 minutes, the credits roll.

Of course, that synopsis belies the depths of the evil implied on and beyond the screen, and the complex and terrible vastness of the characters who occupy the movie. Glazer's talent, and the depths of skill of his cast and crew, makes use of the plethora of tools at a filmmaker's disposal to devastating effect. Although it's almost impossible to elevate any one component first, perhaps the most chilling is a good place to start: the sound design, which won Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn a hugely-deserved Oscar. In nearly every scene, the quotidian goings-on of the Höss household visible on screen are paired with screeching metal of trains arriving and departing; churning smoke pluming from crematoria; distant yells of guards and screams of prisoners victim to their cruelty; and gunshots, thuds, and other auditory violence. The work of the sound team is stomach-churning, and its pairing with a nicely-made breakfast table or a leisurely backyard stroll undercut the violence that the Nazi project lies upon, and the willful heart-hardening required of those involved in its execution.

In a similar vein, cinematographer Lukasz Zal shoots each scene in such a way that the all-too-familiar gas chambers, striped clothing, and endless rows of barracks are just out of eye's reach. The framing of the whitewashed walls surrounding the residence cognitively hint at what's beyond the barbed wire fences, giving enough negative space to feel confined (as the Höss family is in a "safe space" of their own making) yet also understand the vastness of the pain and death just beyond reach. Likewise, production design from Chris Oddy goes to great lengths to characterize the starkness of Nazi ideology through design (such as in Rudolph and Hedwig's separate twin beds, across which they laugh and reminisce yet remain physically removed) while reinforcing the twisted sense of humanity that the perpetrators maintain just feet away from mass murder (such as in their manicured garden and steamy greenhouse). 

The whole crew's talents are crucial to adding the sense of dread and "filling in" for all of the euphemisms and unspoken tensions within the story. Glazer's script is airtight, making extensive use of the "scientific" language, faux-factual analysis, and extensive shared polite-speak the Nazis used to discuss their genocide — which all together enabled "ethical fading," the term ethicists use for the self-deception individuals and organizations use to downplay ethical wrongdoing or moral responsibility of a decision. For that reason, some of the most harrowing moments of the script are, taken at face value, the most mundane. When businessmen pitch a new crematorium model to Rudolph, their marketing techniques and salesman intonations are indistinguishable from an account manager today. When Rudolph learns about plans to promote him and relocate his job to another concentration camp, it sounds the same as a consultant getting moved projects. And when the Höss family rifles through clothes looted from Jews murdered in the camp, their language and attitude is akin to friends examining wares at a flea market in 21st century Brooklyn. 

But what seals the chilling normalcy of the whole film is the performances from an extremely talented cast. Importantly, interviews with most of the actors reflect a career-long wariness about playing Nazis, acknowledging how "Nazi films" so often pigeonhole German actors while also telling stories without the nuance that they deserve. But each of them, reading Glazer's script, were convinced (like I've been) that The Zone of Interest was something special, and put their all into their roles. Christian Friedel is terrifyingly nonchalant as the unflinchingly blank-faced Commandant Rudolf Höss. Perhaps the even greater evil, if such a thing is possible, is portrayed by Sandra Hüller as his wife Hedwig, whose determination to stay at the camp as "Queen of Auschwitz" is disturbing in a way that almost supersedes Rudolf's professional "duty." Hüller's ability to reach emotional depths in morally gray situations should be no surprise to anyone who saw her star turn in Anatomy of a Fall. 

Beyond just those two, many of the small roles are also played to perfection, such as Imogen Kogge as the mother-in-law who acts as a silent critic and perhaps displays the strongest moral compass of any German in the story, or the child actors who play the young Hösses who are so wrapped up in their wartime mythology they've become violent in words, thoughts, and deeds in just as a disturbingly matter-of-fact way as their parents. 

Throughout the two-week FASPE trip — which wrapped up last week — I couldn't stop thinking about The Zone of Interest. Of course, much of that was due to being physically on the Soła River running along the camp, or driving by the real Höss house, or walking through the gas chambers that make a powerful appearance in the film. But I most reflected on how evil is so easy to commit when the actions feel sterilized, unimportant, or faded into immateriality. It's an urgent call to remember as we all continue to live in the proverbial house, hearing the grinding of the camp beyond the wall.