“You failed the living for the dead,” he’s told when his monomania causes him to botch a vital mission but from this abyss – as the film’s last offscreen sound effect tells us with grim finality – no one in the end can escape. From this perspective, Saul’s desperate quest to find a rabbi to say Kaddish over the dead boy he claims is his son is perhaps ultimately no more futile than the plotting of his fellow Sonderkommandos (privileged prisoners who help to control the rest) to escape. Nemes uses that same lethal clang to close several sequences, pairing it with a cut to black, as if to convey that everyone held in the camp, no matter their status, is effectively in the death chamber.
The door closes with a heavy, ominous clang a moment later we hear muffled screams and hammerings on the door. “Don’t forget your hook number,” the voice adds solicitously.
At other times it’s all too easy to tell, as in the devastating opening sequence when the latest trainload of Jewish prisoners, having hung their clothes on hooks, are ushered naked into the shower room while a reassuring voice tells them that their various skills will be needed in the camp, and that soup and hot coffee will be ready for them once they’ve showered. Some of the time we’re left to guess what the offscreen noises indicate. UK release date 29 April 2016 in cinemas and on VoD Rabbi Frankel, ‘Kályhás’ rabbi Jerzy Walczak Taste of Cinema rating 4.Hungary/France/Israel/Bosnia and Herzegovina/USA 2015 The film concludes in a more conventional manner, perhaps, than might be expected, in that it’s a flight to freedom – or maybe a fool’s errand – but remains gripping and tense, balancing suspense and narrative drive with emotional entanglement and an unerring sense of dread.Īs Son of Saul moves inexorably towards a gruelling and suspenseful finish, it raises alarms and requires such intense tenacity that we understand, maybe fleetingly, the endurance and bravery of broken men.
Maybe it’s that he bares a striking physical resemblance to François Truffaut, but his browbeaten amble and fractured grace recalls a cherubic quality that, once seen and raised, cannot be obliterated. Röhrig gives a fearless and unforgettable performance, too. Zányi, incidentally, was awarded the Prix Vulcain de l’Artiste Technicien at Cannes for his efforts, where Son of Saul also rightly received the Grand Prix du Jury and the FIPRESCI Prize. The visuals, as methodical and imposing as they are, are made even more intuitive and airy when combined with sound designer Tamás Zányi’s intricate and terrifyingly efficacious approach. Given the setting, the color palette is a subdued and somber one, and largely nocturnal and underlit, Son of Saul is often chiaroscuro, and feels like a horror film. A foolish notion, certainly, but Saul’s conviction is unwavering. It’s a gut-wrenching, disorienting experience as well as a masterclass in formalist technique.įrom the first frame as the focus tightens in on Saul it’s as if the viewer is plunged into the midst of maelstrom with an intensity few films can match, patently the work of a formidable stylist.īetween duties Saul witnesses a small boy barely survive the gas chamber only to die at the hands of a guard and he symbolically identifies with the boy as a son he lost, vowing to steal him before an autopsy can be performed, to bury him with a shred of dignity and have a rabbi say a blessing over him. Muscular long takes are choreographed intricately, in ways that sometimes obscure or soften the focus, causing fright, uncertainty, and anxiousness in the viewer, as harrowing sequence after harrowing sequence is piled one over the other. Nemes, capably sustained by cinematographer Mátyás Erdély, uses a subjective camera for the entirety of the film, and the audience is with Saul for the entire duration, adding immeasurably to the overall immersive experience. The Sonderkommando were workers made up of prisoners who, as an intertitle tells us at the beginning of the film, were considered “Geheimnisträger”, bearers of secrets. Much to Nemes credit he manages to eschew all the usual clichés telling the story of Saul (Géza Röhrig, brilliant), a Hungarian Jew forced to help the Nazis in Auschwitz where he is a Sonderkommando.
Hungarian director and screenwriter László Nemes makes an astonishing debut – one of the greatest in recent memory – with the heart-rending and brutal Holocaust drama, Son of Saul.