SON OF SAUL directed by Lázió Nemes (Hungary. 2015)
How much of the horror of the holocaust can you stand to watch?
Newsreel footage can turn us all into passive voyeurs to humankind’s capacity for evil. On the other hand, however noble the intentions, turning history into cinema can reduce Nazi atrocities into entertainment.
Lázió Nemes’ remarkable debut avoids both pitfalls. You are never in any doubt about the barbarism at the heart of the story but the camera never dwells on the details.
The focus throughout is on Géza Röhrig as Saul. Set in 1944, he is a prisoner who works as a Sonderkommando member in the Auschwitz extermination camp. In this role he is, temporarily at least, exempt from being killed. His unenviable job is to process the prisoners as they are herded in readiness for mass slaughter and then to cleaning up afterwards.
We see and hear glimpses of the victims, more than enough to know what is happening and the fact that the rest is left to the imagination makes the scenes even more horrific. Saul’s facial expression and body language conveys only an impassive determination to survive; there is no outward display of anger or despair.
The blanking out of emotion or empathy is tested when he witnesses a young boy who briefly survives the gas chamber only to be suffocated immediately by a physician. Saul claims that the boy is his son and resolves to give him a proper Jewish burial. He steals the body and searches for a rabbi to perform the service.
It remains unclear, and doubtful, that the boy is indeed Saul’s son which means that his plan has a purely symbolic value. Ostensibly, this is a futile resolve given the fact that all the other corpses in the camp are unceremoniously burnt or thrown into mass graves. Moreover, Saul’s obsession distracts him from the planned escape plan being plotted by other sonderkommando members.
In plot terms the pursuit of a common act of humanity serves to emphasize the absence of compassion and remorseless butchery going on all around him. Cinematically, the effect is devastatingly effective. We identify with Saul’s plight while realizing how forlorn his actions are. Through him we become helpless spectators to the atrocity and feel his impotence in the face of the brutally organised evil.
Alongside Elem Klimov’s ‘Come And See’ , I’d rate Son Of Saul as one of the most vivid and powerful indictment of Hitler’s executioners I’ve ever seen. This makes it essential viewing not as entertainment but for its educational value.
I’d agree with your review.I also found it one of the most powerful films tackling the holocaust