Son of Saul

Son of Saul

Starring Geza Rohrig, Levente Molnar, Urs Rechn, Sandor Zsoter

Directed by Laszlo Nemes

The Story:
In October of 1944, Saul Ausländer (Geza Rohrig) is a member of the Sonderkommando - Jewish prisoners who work for the Nazis in assisting the gassing, cremation and clean-up of the ashes of Jews murdered in Germany; a job that only prolongs their lives before they, too, are exterminated.

After a group of Jews are exterminated, they find one young boy who didn't die from the gas.  After the Nazi doctors end his life, Saul sees the boy and he looks like his son, so he sets out to find a Rabbi to perform the Kaddish and give him a proper burial.  As he sets out on this endeavor, his fellow Sonderkommando plan a coup to escape before they, too, face the gas chamber.

The Synopsis:
Winner of over 45 awards, including the Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, "Son of Saul" tackles the horrors and atrocities of the Nazis in a very realistic, nuanced, and downright terrifying way.  It shows that we don't need cinematic monsters to scare us - true evil can reside in any man.  Even though it takes place in a crematorium, the film is unflinching in its personal view, as the camera follows Saul from start to finish, giving it a deeply humanistic viewpoint as he seemingly has become desensitized to the events around him.

The first scene pulls you in as you witness what at first seems like an innocent event, but soon you realize it's anything but.  This is just the beginning of the horrors the film portrays through the eyes of one man, a prisoner himself, just waiting for his time to end.  When he sees the body of the boy - who may, or may not, be his son - he's filled with a desire to see him given a proper burial, no matter the cost to his - or his fellow prisoners - lives.  It seems like he's slipped into a world of madness, as he numbly sets out to find a Rabbi no matter how much danger he puts himself and others in.  To this end, his character is incredibly flawed and angers the viewers through his almost narcissistic way to achieve what he wants.  Still, he knows his time may well be up, and this might be the one redeeming thing he wants to accomplish before it ends.

First time director Laszlo Nemes, together with his cinematographer Matyas Erdely and production designer Laszlo Rajk, set out to create a completely unique film.  Whereas some Holocaust movies tend to, in a sense, glorify what is happening, they set out to make a film that wasn't beautiful and didn't look appealing, giving it a truly realistic sense of what we were seeing, almost as if we were there ourselves.  The camera also stayed with Saul throughout the entire film, mostly shot from behind him as we see what he sees, hears what he hears, and experiences what he experiences.  Once again, this style gives us the sense of immediacy, almost a claustrophobic way of  exploring a greater tragedy.  Far from a polished, Hollywood-style film, "Son of Saul" is depressing, discouraging and dutiful in its portrayal of one of the most shocking moments in history, an event that some people somehow still claim never happened. 

The Summary:
While other Holocaust movies give a full picture of the horrors it involved, "Son of Saul" transports us into a very small section, forcing us - along with Saul himself - to face the terrors caused by other humans, through a deeply flawed human himself.

The Score: A