Son of Saul

The unimaginable terror of a death camp, where you've become desensitised to the everyday slaughter and murder of herded souls to keep your sanity until a pause, as the machine fails its evil mandate and expels an innocence for manual extermination, and you're connection to a flame that died some time ago is relit, rekindled, reawakened, with perspectives reset and clarity restored, the overwhelming passion and desire to do what's right in the face of everything that's wrong, in the knowledge that it may be the last righteous thing you may ever do, or indeed anyone may ever do as far as you know in this world gone mad.

Outstanding performances, cinematography and direction in a story that will break your soul.

You can watch a lot of films about Holocaust, but this one is truly outstanding. I experienced a genuine compassion to Saul while watching. Author managed to make us feel all the cruelty of war times.

You cannot take the Holocaust lightly in film. Some have tried, but it fails. László Nemes' Son of Saul takes the Holocaust very seriously. Instead of recounting it in a sombre documentary-esque way such as Schindler's List or even the gut-wrenching approach Alain Resnais takes to Night and Fog, we are utterly present in its unpredictable and relentless horror. While most Holocaust films struggle between their representation of order and chaos, often deciding to switch between the two when necessary, Son of Saul finds the ideal balance, showing these small shards of order within the chaos. The most fascinating idea of its premise is to show the prisoners appointed with the tasks of guiding victims into the gas chambers, organising their belongings and then cleaning up after them. It's a well oiled and melancholic cog, while we know every hard effort to scrub and pull is in vain as their eventual death is only postponed and not evaded.

Saul, played by first-timer and established poet Géza Röhrig, is one of those Sonderkommando prisoners forced to work towards the Final Solution. Our narrative follows him for only two days, but that's all we need to know to get a gruelling snapshot of his minute-to-minute struggles. When a boy nearly survives the gas but is pronounced dead shortly after, Saul recognises him – at least on some level, as it's never clear if the boy is his kin or not, but it is apparent he never took care of his own when he had the chance – and takes him as his son. To himself, he insists on giving his son a clandestine burial which must be officiated by a rabbi. Salvaging the body, locating a rabbi and performing even a small burial is near impossible despite them being in essentially a mass graveyard. Meanwhile, his peers are plotting an escape along with destroying the crematorium and will require Saul's help. However, he cannot assist both futile missions simultaneously.

The film has an incredibly unique approach to the concentration camps. Shot on a tightly framed 35mm hand-held camera, the photography is almost always focused on Saul, leaving the atrocities offscreen or out of focus, but often vividly audible. If there is any complaint, it's that the editing suffers from its long-take construction, but the sound design is an absolute masterclass. Saul's face remains stoic but Röhrig soaks it all in, leaving his mournful expression to interpretation. While he's apparently numb, he's always fully invested in the moment. No scene is quite as hard-hitting as when we watch Saul listen to the screams of people dying in the chambers while he waits outside their doors. It's his one break from being forced to work, and he'll immediately have to remove bodies when it's finished. The way the film builds these routines are very intimate and exhausting and despite being a fictionalised story, it feels very real. Those rituals of removals and cleaning are contrasted with the Jewish rituals that guide their faith, and especially Saul's burial plan.

But beyond the intense yet ambiguous horrors that show the cruellest side of humanity there's ever been in the modern world – despite us never getting close to a Nazi beside brief encounters – the film finds its emotional core in small gestures of compassion. Nobody is required to help Saul, especially in knowing the dangers involved, but there's an unspoken bond between every prisoner to help one another regardless. When he finds the rabbi who agrees to perform the service, it's not powerful because they've been stripped down and Nazis are murdering new arrivals around them – nothing compares to the experience of this scene – it's powerful because the rabbi says yes in spite of that. If they can redeem one shred of morality, it is a small victory and triumph of faith. Saul never lets go of that idea, even when he risks sabotaging the escape mission inadvertently. His mission to bury his son becomes increasingly arbitrary, but never without redemptive merit on a grand scale.

This is an astounding debut film for László Nemes on every level. Even a seasoned visionary director would struggle in such a precise execution. Having worked for the excellent Hungarian director Béla Tarr, his influence is clearly felt here. Tarr also uses long shots and utilises impassive protagonists but Nemes' work is much more dense, engaging, and arguably accessible in its own way but mostly for the immediate empathy the situation earns. While it matches Tarr's poetry, it's a lot more theatrically dramatic. Every one of the supporting cast is on a razor's edge though they never outshine the constantly pushed, pulled, and shoved Röhrig. He need not step in front of the camera again after this soon to be iconic accomplishment. The film's power is immobilising and thoroughly unforgiving, but with good reason. Son of Saul, with its immaculate production, attention to detail, and own noble mission, is not only one of the best of the year but one of the best of the decade. Despite its small scope, it dwarfs every other film on offer this year.

9/10

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This movie is not taken on lightly as an audience member.

To classify it as 'entertainment' would certainly be wrong because the subject matter is so uncompromisingly challenging.

I wanted to love it unreservedly for the bravery of its content but I'm afraid I was left a little cold.

The film is shot in square format (possibly 4:3) which is immediately disarming and unusual (the last time I saw this was in the very different Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel) and it's used effectively because it gives the viewer a voyeuristic look into the mayhem that is Dachau where the movie is set. It also helps the director from a budgetary point of view because it eschews the need for expensive wide shots.

The opening scenes are astonishingly harrowing as we see the "pieces" of Jewish bodies essentially processed through the factory of death with disturbing, off screen, dog barks, German soldier orders and mechanical noise. It's brutal and affecting in the extreme.

In some ways this is what I grotesquely wanted from the movie. I wanted to be horrified like no horror movie could achieve.

Forgive me for this but it didn't happen. Yes, the mood was grotesque thanks, in particular, to the extraordinary sound design, but on screen I felt it shirked its potential too much.

In the end this voyeuristic cinematography ultimately becomes both tiresome and limiting.

The fundamental weakness of the movie, in my opinion, is in the storyline. Frankly it's not that credible and doesn't stack up. The main protagonist (Saul) discovers his (illegitimate?) son as a gas chamber survivor and smuggles him out of the situation to seek a Rabbi to give him a proper Jewish burial.

This leads to a sequence of events that side stories with an undercover camp breakout in which he is also inexplicably involved.

Sorry, it's not credible.

And Géza Röhrig as the lead didn't really do it for me. And so the early wonderment of the movie, it really is very moving, starts to erode and gradually descends into incredibility.

I love what this movie stands for. I respect every iota of it.

I just didn't think it was particularly good overall.

Impressive movie about concentration camp with realist setting , top-notch acting and evocative cinematography in 35 mm . The film was met with wide critical acclaim after its world premiere and has subsequently been submitted as Hungary's official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards . This excellent movie deals with the horror of 1944 in Auschwitz , the infamous extermination center , capturing an insightful portrait of hell and the spiritual experience and focusing the story of a man wanting to bury his assumed son . Thus , when the incoming transports , mostly Jews , SS soldiers made instant decisions , those who were fit to labors were sent into the camp , others including the children , were dispatched immediately to the gas chambers where approximately one-quarter million Jews were executed . There a prisoner , a ¨Sonderkommando¨ is forced to burn the corpses of his own people , then he finds moral survival upon attempting to save from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son , and he subsequently looks for a Jewish Rabí . At the end takes place a rebellion and a breathtaking , exciting getaway .

This terrible picture is well set in Auschwitz , it was a painful extermination camp of killing of Jews including children . We see horrors , murders , massacres against the prisoners but from a particular sight point , the starring : Geza Rohrig , who gives a very good acting with his subjective vision . Along with Geza , there appears a lot of fine but unknown Hungarian actors such as Levente Monar, Urs Rechn, Tood Charmont, Sándor Zsotér, Marcin Czarnik, and Jerzy Walczak , all of them display magnificent performances ; including their realistic mélange of Hungarian, German and Yiddish dialogue . Atmospheric cinematography by Mátyás Erdély , the outside scenes were shot only with natural light , it is fully aware of the quality of light , relying on natural light for outdoors . This Hungarian Cannes prize-winner that won a Golden Globe in the "Best Foreign Language Film" category in 2016 and critically heralded Holocaust film began what is likely to be a multi-month run , calibrated in hopes of winning the Foreign Language Academy Award as well as to maximize grossing potent . It is a dark and serious flick , a splendid movie about the brutal existence at concentration camp and subsequent breakout from horrible place . The picture is based on real events , as Auschwitz along with Sobibór , Chelmno , Belzec and Treblinka were five large death camps in the Lublin district of Poland transformed into extermination centers to implement the policy of genocide thought at the Wannsee Conference . All the concentration camps were under the command of SS Odilo Globocnick . There was some minor industrial activity linked to the war effort but the main work was the execution of inmates . Victims were brought to the camp in unventilated transports , and all but a handful were gassed after arrival , the gas chambers could accommodate hundred prisoners at one time , most of their corpses were burned in open pits .

Filmmaker Laszlo Nemes , his debut feature , avoids both , melodrama and violence , giving a thought-provoking as well as intense description about the hard existence in Auschwitz . Director László Nemes stated on cinematic inspirations : ¨Come and see¨ (1985) by Elem Klimov was a great source of inspiration for me ; however the film bears remarkable resemblance to ¨The grey zone¨ (201) by Tim Blake Nelson . Nemes took testimony from present witnesses , he made a real investigation labour and had particular help of prestigious historians as Gideon Grief , Philippe Mesnard and Zoltan Vagi . Nemes wanted to convey something that goes against the perception through films, that it is a mixture of organisation and chaos . Lazsló called Nobel prize-winning Hungarian writer and concentration camp survivor Imre Kertész an inspiration to make this film . He took records from known documentary ¨Shoa¨ by Claudie Lanzmann , especially the actual testimony from Abraham Bomba , as well as of the ¨Memorial of Shoa¨ , with a book titled ¨Voices under the ashes¨ also titled ¨The writings of Auschwitz¨ .