Film Review: Personal Holocaust Horror is Rooted in ‘Son of Saul’

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Average: 5 (1 vote)

CHICAGO – The Oscar nominated, Golden Globe winning Best Foreign Language Film is a another trip into the well of horror that was the Holocaust. After over 100 movie treatments, director László Nemes finds a more personal story to tell, and it all unfolds in “Son of Saul.”

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.5/5.0
Rating: 3.5/5.0

The telling and style of the film is its greatest strength. Director Nemes chose to present the circumstance through the “Academy” screen ratio (1.37 to 1, more square than a normal widescreen), and focuses on his main character Saul throughout his path in the story. This allows for the actor Géza Röhrig to use his character as a focus – all the pain, dread and numbness spill into the audience. This is harsh and difficult subject matter – with death being the norm – and little hope for the Jewish prisoners who both march to the gallows, or in the case of Saul, are forced to clean up the resultant corpses of the genocide. This is creative bitterness, valuable as art but draining as an experience.

Saul (Géza Röhrig) is a so-called “Sonderkommando” at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. The term was given to the Jews who were forced by their Nazi captors to clean up and burn bodies after the many exterminations. This is literally a survivor position, as the unit were separated from the other captors, marked with symbols and given special privileges.

Saul is like a sleepwalker, as followed through his horrid duties, until an event occurs that wakes him up. A boy has somehow survived the gas chambers, and is “killed” again. The “doctors” of the camp insist that the body be brought to their chambers for examination, but Saul suddenly plans other route. He sees the boy as his son, and steals the body to seek a proper Jewish funeral ritual. Around his journey, a revolt is being planned, and a liberation may be at hand.

“Son of Saul” continues its limited release in Chicago on January 29th. See local listings for theaters and show times. Featuring Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnár, Urs Rechn and Todd Charmont. Written by László Nemes and Clara Royer. Directed by László Nemes. Rated “R”

StarContinue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Son of Saul”

Géza Röhrig
Géza Röhrig is Saul in ‘Son of Saul’
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Classic

StarContinue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Son of Saul”

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