Oscar-nominated director Jonathan Glazer’s latest film, The Zone of Interest, explores the seeming normality of a family living next to Auschwitz during World War II. In the film, which is also nominated for Best Picture at next month’s awards, the father of the family is the Nazi commandant of the concentration camp as the horrors of the Holocaust are taking place just meters away from his orderly house and garden in Poland. The film is adapted from the Martin Amis novel of the same name.
Glazer, whose previous films include the dramas Sexy Beast and Birth, tells The Treatment why it was important to show that the main characters were ordinary human beings and not monstrous caricatures. He also opens up about his experience of visiting Auschwitz for the first time and he shares the challenge of convincing the actors to play these roles.