Based on the real-life story of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), The Zone of Interest follows Höss and his family as they live out their idyllic life, sharing nothing but a wall with the death camp.

It’s striking that a film imbued with so much horror nonetheless qualifies for a 12a certificate. The brutality which seems so woven into its fibre is left entirely to the imagination. The Family are concerned with their living situation and train delays, the moral conflict they feel at the horror beyond their back garden is notable only by its absence.

Based on a novel by Martin Amis, it’s reimagined for the screen, relying almost entirely on background noise to make its point. The sparsely used music is a howl of dread. The family enjoy normal activities, but we never warm to them. The complicity of the womenfolk, whether due to full-throated Nazism or highly motivated ignorance, would make a Mafia wife blush. How anyone can live their lives with the daily sound of gunfire and in sight of the smoking chimneys of mass crematoria is something it will probably never be possible to understand.

If it has a flaw it’s that there is little variety over its two-hour runtime, and its core point could be made just as clearly in a ten minute short film. But its innovative approach to the subject matter literally provides a new perspective, and invites uncomfortable questions about our own capacity for hypocrisy.