Géza Röhrig as Saul. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics ©
– By Cate Marquis –
‘Son of Saul’ is a powerful, difficult trip into Auschwitz
“Son of Saul” is a powerful, cinematically brilliant drama that takes viewers into a first-person experience of the Auschwitz concentration camp. It is an impressive film debut for Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes, a descendant of Shoah survivors. The film won the 2015 Cannes Grand Prix, a Golden Globe and is the leading contender for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
Still, due to its unblinking realism, this is not a film for everyone.
“Son of Saul” takes a different approach from films like “Schindler’s List” or “The Pianist.” It is neither a survivor’s story nor a recap of the big picture of the Shoah. It is a film made with different intentions, aiming to accurately depict the Nazis’ brutality through details of the mechanics of their death machine, based on eyewitness accounts.
The murderous work of the camps is shown through the eyes of one person very close to that factorylike horror. This is a hard film to watch, even though it avoids graphic depictions of what happens in the gas chambers.
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