One of the benefits of social media and increasingly accessible and advanced technology is that news can be transmitted at rapid speed to the entire world. Atrocities can’t happen as easily without people being made aware of them, though the prominence of misinformation also leads to doubt being sown about whether an image or video might have been manipulated. Long before all this, the Holocaust was one of the most brutal periods in recent history that some couldn’t – and others inexplicably still don’t – believe was real. The Zone of Interest looks at one of the deadliest concentration camps through an unusual lens, that of the commandant’s family living an idyllic life on its perimeter.

Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) is the man charged with supervising Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp in Poland that housed and killed many Jews and other prisoners in the 1940s. He lives in a beautiful house just outside the gates with his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), who devotes time to her lavish garden and ensures that the house functions well. Local servants care for their children, and when Rudolf receives news that he is likely to be transferred to a new role that will take him far from Auschwitz, Hedwig is dismayed at the thought of having to leave the place that she has truly come to love as her home.

The Zone of Interest is based on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis, a work of fiction that utilizes real-life people – Rudolf and Hedwig – and incorporates certain documented details while imagining other moments. Its gaze is deliberate and specific, never venturing past those gates or over the fences to see the people being treated brutally inside the camp, instead remaining on this family that might as well be living in a country home far from the smell of death. The sounds that they hear and the smoke emanating in the distance barely even register to the adults, and the children have surely become far too attuned to them, no longer aware that there is nothing normal or okay about what is happening an impossibly close to them.

This film, which comes from director Jonathan Glazer, is a fascinating specimen. The choice to only show this family away from the horrors in which they are very much complicit is an intriguing one that, for those who have learned about Rudolf’s legacy at Auschwitz and other terrible stories from the Holocaust, will surely prove very effective. Yet there is a risk that uneducated audiences will find too few clues about what they should know, aside from several memorable and haunting scenes in which Rudolf explores a new plan to gas Jews at a more rapid rate and meets with other commandants to discuss the planned deportation of an entire country’s Jewish population.

All onscreen and supporting elements combine to create a dizzying experience in watching this film, with Lukasz Zal’s cinematography choreographed to show only what its characters want to see and a slight hint of the ugliness and viciousness that they can’t shut out. Mica Levi’s score and Chris Oddy’s production design enhance the feeling that this story could be happening anywhere, further underlining the objectionable nature of its characters behaving as if they are at a vacation home with little to worry about other than the maintenance of a routine so that they won’t miss out on the beauty of their immediate surroundings.

Key to this film’s effectiveness are its two central performers. Friedel wears a specific haircut and that all-too-recognizable Nazi uniform, remaining entirely devoted to his work and to not letting himself relax, even in a quiet moment away from the job. He is a true believer in the idea that what he is doing is of critical importance and that he needs to do it for the sake of his family. Hüller, who also stars in another acclaimed international film this year, Anatomy of a Fall, captures Hedwig’s vanity and her preoccupation with what she wants, not at all concerned with the plight of those around her. Their performances are appropriately chilling, anchoring a film that has a strong, vital message and is not easy to shake or forget.

Grade: B+

Check out more of Abe Friedtanzer’s articles.

The Zone of Interest is the United Kingdom’s official Oscar entry for Best International Feature and is now playing in select theaters.