Son Of Saul

SON OF SAUL

Director : Laszlo Nemes
Year : 2016
Genre : Drama
Rating : *****

We begin in a shadowy, almost hallucinogenic haze as the camera slowly begins to gain focus and the grizzled face of our protagonist slowly approaches. Following him is a caravan of other people, purposefully kept out of focus and displaying signs of great distress. Led through the dark corridors of the yet undisclosed location, our hearts soon sink in abject horror as we quickly realise that we are in fact caught in the monstrous bowels of the Auschwitz II Birkenau concentration camp and that the wall of blurred faces are in reality countless humans being led to their horrific murders. 

This sequence serves as the most horrifying overture to 'Son Of Saul', a bold, stark and, at times, completely unwatchable viewing experience. The recipient of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film at the 88th Academy Awards, Laszlo Nemes' fearsome directorial debut is an overwhelmingly powerful drama set during the incomparably dark days of the Holocaust that in its attempts to portray the evils of the Nazi war machine, leaves it's audience in a state of shock and indeterminate sorrow. 

Set in 1944, 'Son Of Saul' tells the story of Saul Auslander (brilliantly portrayed by Hungarian poet Geza Rohrig), a Jewish prisoner at the notorious extermination death camp who, on pain of execution, must aid the Germans in their efforts to eradicate his fellow Jews as part of the Sonderkommando work unit. Marked with the red cross denoting his most hideous of professions, Saul's tasks include pacifying the prisoners, aiding them in the cavernous changing rooms and ultimately clearing out the many hundreds of bodies upon their deaths in the gas chambers. 

But when a young boy fails to succumb to the Zyklon-B and is calmly and methodically suffocated by an emotionless German doctor right before his eyes, Saul comes to believe that the small child was in fact his own and embarks on a death defying quest across the blood stained grounds of Auschwitz to find a Rabbi that will give his "son" a proper Jewish burial - all the while surrounded by the screams, the gunshots and the pleas of mercy that make up the macabre soundtrack of this notably music-free film.

Unlike other picturess set during this darkest of times, 'Son Of Saul' manages to portray the soul-shattering horrors of the final solution without any sense of exploitation whatsoever and while indeed harrowing, the methods used to convey the atrocities is almost entirely told on the peripheries of Nemes' enclosed, almost claustrophobic frame - with Saul's wearied and expressionless face kept in sharp, almost intrusive focus while executions, burning bodies and the faces of the countless innocents remain in a nightmarish, nigh on indistinguishable fog around him.

This bold and aesthetically spellbinding technique allows Rohrigs predominantly mute yet terrific central performance to really hit home - his blank, ash covered visage all but silenced by the unimaginable sights and the sounds of the extermination camp, a hollow husk of a man unable to feel, to emote or even to be shocked. It is one of the most indelible images I have ever seen and one that I know will live with me for the rest of my life.

To portray the horrors of the Holocaust is one of the hardest tasks any filmmaker will ever do and while many have so valiantly failed to do so with any credibility, 'Son Of Saul' manages its job with frightening clarity and unyieldingly bleak realism. It is a mature, sincere and above all, moral depiction of humanities darkest hours that is an incredibly tough watch but one that is sure to be a profound, moving and utterly unforgettable one too.