The Second Zone of Interest

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Viewer, Week 6 (9/29 + 10/1) • Editing II: “Alternative” Forms

How Diegetic Sound Shaped This Film

This film opened with a piercing sound sequence that set the stage for this film. At first, I watched this scene thinking that the screen in White Hall 105 had failed us and that we weren’t seeing the visuals, because of course, for a sound this intimidating there had to be visuals. However, I was wrong and for about 2 minutes the room was pitch black and filled with this horrifying siren noise that then, turned into the sounds of birds singing. The sound in this film is impossible to ignore, horrific to hear, and hard to talk about. It’s hard to call the depictions of such a horrifying event “a well done piece of work,” it feels wrong knowing these were the sounds of real people. However, to pick apart this movie we must acknowledge such a strong piece of it and the fact that they managed to paint a completely vivid image of something we never saw.

“I wanted viewers to realise that they’re submerging,” the director, Jonathan Glazer, told Rolling Stone about the intro of this film, “It was a way of tuning your ears [in] before you tune your eyes to what you’re about to view.”

Sound shaped how we all viewed this movie, if it weren’t for the sound we would believe that this film was about a happyish family who just got a nice new house. However, the message becomes clear to us in the scenes where we are showed a pretty flower but the background audio is people screaming or when we would see the family going through daily actions and the sound would be replaced by an overwhelming sound of pain. This movie made it impossible to feel comfortable with anything that this family was doing, it made their ignorance apparent and made it clear that despite the “happy” atomic family imagery, there was a true horror happening across that wall.

While watching it, it also felt like the director was almost making a commentary on the viewers as well, it felt like I was complicit. I was sat there, watching a family go through mundane actions, while people were genuinely suffering, and all we could do was listen. It added onto the overall feeling that this movie was a massive political commentary on how we as people often excuse horrors simply because we do not see them first hand. We too are complicit in horrors when we become indifferent to blatant pain and suffering, and this movie felt like it was screaming that in our faces. Because as these people were being burned alive across the wall, despite breathing in their ashes constantly, this family remained disgustingly indifferent.

Throughout this movie there were 2 other scenes with the overwhelming sounds we heard in the intro, except they weren’t black outs- they were a red and white out. Although these scenes were also used to direct our attention back to the sound in these moments, they were also used to symbolize the atrocities happening off screen. The white out was used after they talked about expanding the camps so they could burn more people, and the director noted that it was supposed to be used to direct our attention back to the sounds of people screaming. Then they used the red out after a close up of a red rose, this seemingly beautiful thing is actually born out of misery. In this garden we are shown a scene of a boy using ashes to fertilize the garden, so even a simple thing in nature we would normally look at and enjoy- is a genuine representation of blood and suffrage. So when the scene goes to the red out, we hear the screams of these people, we hear the pain.

The sound is the movie, The Zone of Interest pushed the boundaries of how to portray something historically devastating and still managed to leave viewers with a feeling of deep reflection. Are we doing this everyday? Do we too sit in a nice house while ignoring the blatant suffrage of others across the walls?

Comments

4 responses to “The Second Zone of Interest”

September 30, 2025

Jamie Schechner

Hi Naomi,

When watching “The Zone of Interest”, I very much agree that we are supposed to be asking, as you said, “Are we doing this everyday?” And I also very much agree that, as you said, the sound says the answer: yes.

I think it would be hard to argue that we are all as culpable in much of anything as the Hoss family is––we do not have concentration camps attached to our houses, we are not actively managing genocides. However, this is an extreme example. In this way, The Zone of Interest is almost, to me, a satire––we see, as you said, this happy family, while we hear a horrific warscape.

I think you do a really fantastic job summarizing the genius of the sound design and how it affects this sense of irony. It is a “well done piece of work”––and that just makes it all the more horrifying.

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September 30, 2025

Andrew Wang

I totally agree with your views on how this movie focuses on sound! Most of the times, when we are thinking about the cinematography, the mise-en-scene, and the reason why a particular frame exists, we would neglect some information that might actually be important! In this case, although I was already paying close attention to the sound, recognizing that the screams in the background juxtaposes with the calm, green life that the Hoss family is living, I was shocked at how the movie ends. It seemed to me that the story has not ended. It was only after walking out of white hall and rethinking about it, I sort of understood the direction of Hoss walking down the stairs from lighted staircases to dark staircases, intervened by the sudden modern exhibition of the Holocaust, is by itself an ironic ending.

Also, I really liked how you mentioned the white-outs and red-outs. These scenes force us to focus on the sound, almost directly hinting to us that sound is what is more important in this movie. My point being that this film is experimenting on the audience’s zone of interest: are we satisfied/calmed by the Hoss family’s peacefulness, or are we much more aware and discomforted by the screams outside of the fences? The sound implicates us as viewers, making us feel uncomfortably aware of our own distance from the suffering. Like you said, it pushes us to reflect on how indifference operates today, not just in the past.

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September 30, 2025

Valentin Krenn

As you highlighted very well in your post, the sound is the key element of this film. The sound alone gave me a feeling of unease throughout the entire length of the film. In every scene that takes place in or around the Höß family’s house, you can hear the machinery of Auschwitz. Even deep at night, there’s always this underlying rumble. I was surprised that not a single character had any complaint about the soundscape—almost as if they were enjoying these terrible noises.

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October 1, 2025

Kate Goldberg

Hi Naomi!

You speak about the director making a statement about our own complicit behaviors in the horrors happening in the real world. This is a theme I have heard consistently about this film, and as this was my second time watching, I wanted to try to draw a different conclusion, as I had not felt like that was an accurate takeaway that the audience should feel. As you stated, “as these people were being burned alive across the wall, despite breathing in their ashes constantly, this family remained disgustingly indifferent.” I would argue that the family was the exact opposite of indifferent. Hedwig wears the clothes and makeup of the victims, the children pretend to shove each other into gas chambers, and they speak of the politics of Nazi life in casual conversation. The only Jewish person mentioned in the film is by Hedwig’s mother, who flees the camp as soon as she can. This house is a representation of the perfectly pure German life that they had always wanted, and the camp next door is not just next to them but a reminder of their success in achieving that. When we tap into our own compliance, we think of what we are not doing, or the causes in which we are not helping. These atrocious people were not only not helping but actively doing harm. I think that is the clear distinction between this family and our own reflection of ourselves.

Still, I loved your point about diegetic and non-diegetic sounds’ influence on the film. You said it felt wrong knowing these were real people, but I think that you perfectly encapsulated how one should feel when confronted with the realities of history’s horrors, such as this. I am reminded of another use of non-diegetic sound in the film, when the song “Sunbeams” by Joseph Wulf is played on the piano, which I learned afterwards was an actual composition from a survivor of the Holocaust. To quote you again, it felt like another “beautiful thing is actually born out of misery.” In this simple melody, we are again struck by the reality and humanity that are incredibly present in the layers of this film, which are truly uncovered at the end.

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