The Unheard Known - - The Zone Of Interest (2023, USA/UK/Poland, Color, 105 min) - - 27 September 2024, International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Recommended. The Zone Of Interest is the latest meditation on Hannah Arendt's observation that Nazi bureaucrat Adolph Eichmann exemplified "the banality of evil." Eichmann could more easily abstract the slaughter of human beings than the family of Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of Auschwitz (Christian Friedel, The White Ribbon). The story centers on Höss - - like Eichmann, a blandly ambitious functionary - - and his wife, played by Sandra Hüller (Anatomy Of A Fall), as a whiney, grubby Army spouse. Director Jonathan Glazer (Under The Skin) methodically unveils the horror underlying the banality of the Höss family . . . fussing over their flower garden. First, comes the barbed-wire-topped concrete wall bordering Höss's backyard. Then, the constant smoke. Finally, it's the background noise . . . wailing children, barked orders, and random pistol shots seeping through the walls. And most terrible is a 24/7 rumble, the ravenous oven's roar. The Zone Of Interest is Oscar^©-nominated for sound . . . evil sound.