Son of Saul (2015) (Hungarian, German & other languages)

Review

107min

Genre:      Drama, War, Thriller

Director:   László Nemes

Cast:        Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnár, Urs Rechn…and more

Writers:    László Nemes and Clara Royer

-Synopsis-

In Auschwitz at the height of the Holocaust; a Hungarian member of the “Sonderkommando“, a special unit of Jewish prisoners forced to assist in running the Nazi death-camps, finds solemn purpose in caring for the body & soul of a young victim of the “final solution” in this harrowing Oscar-winning Hungarian drama.

As with many other foreign language releases, UK audiences have the dubious honour of being the last to watch ‘Son of Saul’ at the cinema after seeing László Nemes’s directorial debut impress at last year’s film festivals and triumph at February’s Academy Awards.

But the wait is worth it as this Hungarian addition to the tradition of Holocaust cinema is as bold and original as it is disturbing and memorable.

The story surrounds the lives of the “Sonderkommandos“; “special units” in the concentration camps who were mostly Jews forced to aid in the operations by disposing of bodies and sorting stolen property among other things. A convenient arrangement which allowed the Nazis to dehumanize their victims while preying on their survival instincts for slave labour, before disposing of the evidence by routine periodic extermination of these men.

Despite taking place in a setting based on real events within the camps including the 1944 uprising, the core human story in ‘Son of Saul’ is dramatic fiction. But the small budget combined with a focus on the technicalities of the dehumanizing Nazi death machine, often seen through the eyes of “Saul” himself, make this one of the most personal depictions of the Holocaust in cinematic history.

Hungarian writer/teacher turned actor Géza Röhrig, a former orphan and Jewish convert, stars as “Saul” in an extraordinary feature film debut. Punctuated by director Nemes often pulling a tight focus on Röhrig’s haunting and haunted face, while the horrors of the Third Reich’s industry of death occur around him in a blurry haze.

This gives the crimes an even more disturbing quality as the details are largely left to your imagination, pulling the audience into this horrific journey while helping to them to empathise and feel almost complicit.

Like any film about the Holocaust ‘Son of Saul’ is often hard to watch, as it should be, and serves as a timely reminder to new generations of what mass xenophobia and hatred can result in, even in a modern “civilised” society.

The film builds tension as “Saul” pursues an obsession in a situation where sanity is not the name of the game, and this then becomes as much a horror/thriller as it is a drama, albeit a very real one.

But unlike most films on the subject, this impressive directorial debut delves deep into one of the more cruel and controversial aspects of this modern genocide, with Nemes managing to remove the abstract quality of events from over 70 years ago and give them a haunting face.

We just hope that more filmmakers will have the “chutzpah” to apply an unwavering cinematic eye to the many forgotten genocides that have occurred since the holocaust in Africa, Southeast Asia and beyond. Hopefully taking the efforts of films like ‘The Killing Fields’ and Joshua Oppenheimer’s more recent Indonesian genocide documentaries to the next step.

The Bottom Line…

It’s hard to imagine that a debut film from a Hungarian director in a foreign language could be more impactful. László Nemes crafts a unique look at one of modern history’s darkest periods, putting a very human face to one of the most harrowing elements of the Holocaust in an unforgettable drama that has earned its global praise.

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Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Escape from Sobibor (1987)

1980s TV movie chronicling the uprising of 1943 in the Sobibór extermination camp in occupied Poland, where prisoners managed to plan and execute an escape by killing the camp Nazi SS officers.

Directed by  Jack Gold and starring Alan Arkin, Rutger Hauer and Joanna Pacula among others.

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