Christian Friedel’s first glimpse of The Zone of Interest was startling. No surprise there. Jonathan Glazer’s film, set in and around Auschwitz at the height of its murderous efficiency, has been unsettling festival viewers since its premiere at Cannes, last May. Friedel plays Rudolf Höss, the camp’s longest-serving commandant, as he lives a chillingly ordinary life in the middle-class home that abuts the killing ground. We see no violence. But we hear a near constant clatter of clanking and pistol shots. The ambient chorus of death. “It was really surprising to see the film in its entirety,” says Friedel. “When...