Christian Friedel as Nazi officer Rudolf Höss
THE UNIFORM
Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest, very loosely adapted from Martin Amis’ 2014 novel, is a character study of real-life high-ranking Nazi officer Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), living in a beautiful house… which backs directly onto the Auschwitz concentration camp. Friedel plays Höss with a callous indifference to the atrocities — and the suit helped. He first tried it on during pre-production in Poland, where the film was shot. “I was in Warsaw. Jonathan was by my side, and we were both nervous. It was a moment I will never forget, looking into the mirror with this uniform on for the first time. Jonathan was speechless. It was shocking.” Wearing it changed Friedel’s posture, straightening him up, he says. “And it helps you, from the outside, to imagine how the inside of him could be. I didn’t like it, but it was helpful to create the character. I wanted to give him a human face. It felt sometimes like he was a little boy wearing a uniform.”