Le fils de Saul

Few movies have affected me on such a deep and emotional level like Son of Saul. I walked into the theater having no idea what the subject matter was, or read any reviews, so I wasn't sure what to expect. What I witnessed was one of the most difficult and trying pieces about the Holocaust, and a bond between father and son during the most horrific circumstances.

By now, many of you have read about the unique style and focus of the film. Shot in 35mm, each shot does not fill the screen. There is only one focal point throughout the film, which means people and objects that are close to the camera are in focus, and everything in the background remains out of focus (except for a few shots where we do not center on Saul). This unique and somewhat unprofessional style is an absolute benefit to the overall story that unfolds before the audience. I was sometimes glad that you couldn't see some of the horrors that were happening all around the main character, but you can tell very plainly what's happening.

The story is actually a short one, it takes place in only about a day and a half, but the content of this story is what makes it stand out so brilliantly. Most films about the genocide of the Jewish race during the holocaust have a very broad perspective, showing multiple events to various people who were living through one of the worst horrors man has ever inflicted upon man. Usually these films, like "Schindler's List" focus on some savior and the survivors of such events, or even worse movies like "Heart's War" which fictionalizes a history that is almost insulting to watch. Son of Saul is a much more personal and heart-wrenching story of one prisoner who works under a Sonderkommando labour groups within the walls of Auschwitz Birkenau. There is a definition of such groups at the beginning of the film, and it tells very plainly what their duties were, under threat of death.

It is very difficult, or rather naught and impossible, to comprehend the level of horror prisoners had to live through during the extermination of their own race, but that is where this film is most successful. It achieved something that I very rarely experience during a film. This is when I cease to remember that I am at the cinema watching a movie unfold before me, and for quite some time, believe that I am right there, bearing witness to these events. That is the true goal of cinema I believe. To have the viewer in complete empathy with what is happening to the characters as the movie progresses. And I was completely and utterly entranced.

This film is not for the faint of heart. It is horrifying and unbearable at times, but is absolutely unique and utterly phenomenal to watch. A fantastic first for both director László Nemes and lead Géza Röhrig.

9/10

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.

The room is filled to the brim with happy, healthy people aged 20 to 80, who just stocked up on American drinks and candy of all sorts and eagerly await the start of the movie. After some commercials and a trailer, the lights dim and the last conversations between these movie-goers come to a halt. Silence ensues.

FESTIVAL DE CANNES / GRAND PRIX, the screen states. The film begins. A seemingly never-ending scene is shown in which we follow the stoic face of a man who walks among hundreds of others, gently prodding them to move along, walk faster, go on. Everyone present in the cinema immediately knows what's going on. Silence continues.

The people undress. They are herded into the 'shower' rooms. The doors are shut. The Jews who are forced to help the Nazis murder these people are asked to throw their full bodyweight against the doors, so nobody can escape. Screams, endless screams, envelop the theater. High-pitched children's screams, men's despairing yells, women's cries and sobs. After what seems to be an eternity, the screen cuts to black and the movie title is displayed. The screams fall silent.

Filmed in a World War 2-like 4X3 aspect ratio, we continue to follow the protagonist literally head-on for an hour and a half. The 21st- century audience knows the stories, the names of the camps, has read books and seen dozens of movies about the Holocaust. But never like this. Screams alternate with silence, gunshots juxtapose stillness, life rubs in death. And through all of it, the audience is silent.

Some gasp and put their hands in front of their mouths, others have the same dead stare the protagonist shows throughout the movie. Most everyone has trouble breathing as the movie grabs them by the throat and does not let go. Silence screams from the throats of every movie- goer present.

As the credits roll, nobody talks, but everyone is in a hurry to leave the theater. Everyone wants to escape the living hell they've just experienced for an hour and a half. And everyone is more keenly aware than ever that for 15 million people a mere three generations ago, escape was not an option. The audience was never this silent during any of the hundreds of movies I saw on the silver screen. No coughs, no crunching on chips, no unscrewing of bottles, no talk. Merely silence.

As the audience shuffles out of the door, they all realize that silence is all that remains: silence screaming from the theater itself, screaming silence from the screen. They know that no matter how many books, history lessons or movies are made about the subject, it's a silence that still should be screamed, yelled and cried into the world for generations to come.

This movie starts completely out of focus - literally. The viewer sees only vague shapes moving around. Is this a technical error or an experiment gone wrong? Nothing of the kind. After a while, the face of lead character Saul Auslander moves close to the camera - and into focus.

And it stays this way. In the first few minutes, the camera stays within a range of 50 centimeters from Saul's face. Or I should say: Saul's head - because sometimes we see only the side or the back of his head.

The effect of this style of filming is no less than spectacular. All kinds of things are happening around Saul. Horrible things, we soon learn. But we never get to see them close by. We only see shapes, out of focus, at the extreme fringes of the screen, and we hear the sounds. And we keep seeing his face, in focus. He moves around, works, does things, and all the while all we see is his face.

Soon we understand where he is: in a Nazi concentration camp. Saul belongs to a Sonderkommando, a group of Jews who are temporarily spared from death to do the labour the Germans don't want to do. In the midst of the terrible atrocities, it becomes his mission to bury a boy he believes is his son.

This film is unique in showing the concentration camp for what is is: hell on earth. Naked dead bodies being dragged around, desperate people being shot indiscriminately, complete absence of anything humanity stands for. It is exactly this total loss of dignity that drives Saul in his hopeless quest for a way to organize a proper burial for the dead boy.

Son of Saul is the complete antithesis of that other monumental Holocaust movie: Schindler's List. While Spielberg's film is made according to all the rules of good film making, Son of Saul is a claustrophobic trip, without any possible concession to commercial appeal. The dialogue is often hardly comprehensible, spoken in three languages, sometimes not louder than a whisper. Not all the acts and events are quite clear, and only after a while you understand what exactly drives Saul.

This is a unique, hard-hitting movie experience. When you go see it, don't expect a well-rounded story with heroes and villains and a nice ending. But expect to be swept away.

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.