The second significant piece of key art for Jonathan Glazer's The Zone Of Interest leans into a minimalism and iconography, almost as oblique as the film itself. It reminds me of the opening shot of his previous film, Under The Skin, which features a single focusing pupil for several minutes. Here, what appears to be a poppy, the flower of the post-war world, but also the entrance to a void. If you have seen the film, the image has a very significant connection to one of the more unusual (and there are several) design choices in the storytelling.
It keeps the same 'polaroid' design as the previous incarnation, where the title intersects sharply with the credit block. It also keeps the pure blackness at the edges of the design, which is very much on theme with the subject matter and execution of the narrative. There is little this poster tells you about the film unless you were already aware of it. And yet, the design is so unusual for a movie poster that it is compelling and memorable enough to make an unaware moviegoer a bit intrigued. Perhaps to plant a seed. The pull quote, which positively pops in skinny white text on the bleeding red, does a fair bit of work to further allow the casual observer to lean in.
Design studio, Kellerhouse Inc., have been responsible for some original and striking work in the past, mainly for many of Steven Soderbergh's hardest to sell films, including the farcical deadpan corporate exposé, The Informant, the documentary tribute to Spaulding Gray And Everything is Going Fine, as well as vérité escort flick, The Girlfriend Experience. But also noteworthy is the hand illustrated designs for David Fincher's recent The Killer, and Ti West's classic House of the Devil. Their work is always worth a second look.
