WATCH SON OF SAUL MOVIE

But this is just a marvel of controlled filmmaking-a bold vision carried out with powerful simplicity, and an impressively assured debut form both Nemes and RГ¶hrig as his star. If youвЂ™re not a fan of ambiguity, either from a narrative or moral perspective, you may have trouble here.

WATCH SON OF SAUL MOVIE

вЂњSon of SaulвЂќ is a movie that requires attention and patience, with a script from Nemes and Clara Royer thatвЂ™s often wordless or whispered. Right away, we know weвЂ™re in the hands of a director who wants to tell the story of the Holocaust from a different perspective than weвЂ™ve seen before in films: a more personal, intimate one. The suggestion of the suffering is more unsettling than wallowing in it. The horror remains in the periphery, a blur, but itвЂ™s unmistakable: the pounding and screaming from behind the metal doors, the naked and lifeless limbs being dragged across the concrete floor once the doors have reopened. HeвЂ™s a crumbling faГ§ade, a blank face with downturned eyes that burn bright on the brief occasions heвЂ™s acting for himself, knowing however things turn out that death will be with him forever.Nemes stays close, showing us only what Saul sees, photographing him from the back or the side, Dardennes-style, as he walks purposefully toward each destination. ItвЂ™s a towering performance from RГ¶hrig, playing a character who has to be totally locked down emotionally to survive. The guards are either mocking or murderous, a presence to be avoided much of the films ghastly atmosphere comes from the feeling that this is a machine running itself. The accrual of small details adds immeasurably to this filmвЂ™s nightmarish tone, each banality (fighting over a shovel, trying to fix a busted lock) piling up atop each other as Saul passes by like a sleepwalker trapped in a nightmare вЂ“ which, of course, he is. Is he trying to make up for a son he couldnвЂ™t help? Or is he simply trying to reclaim some humanity from the inhuman machine he has become entangled in? His search takes him all over the camp and outside it, giving us a wide-ranging look at the massive scale of the campвЂ™s operations mountains of ash are disposed of by shovelling them into a river, mountains of coal are shovelled into furnaces to heat the ovens, mountains of personal possessions are sorted by female inmates, and the piles of corpses dwarf them all. At one stage he refers to the boy as his son another prisoner snaps вЂњyou have no sonвЂќ. ThereвЂ™s a plot about an insurrection (based on actual events) which also muddies things slightly, though no doubt thatвЂ™s the point as the chaos swells around him, Saul never loses his focus.Д®xactly what drives Saul on his search remains a mystery. But as the focus tightens on SaulвЂ™s quest, some of its early impact fades heвЂ™s just one man, a drop in an ocean of blood, and by necessity the more we focus on him the less of the big picture we take in. This intensely powerful film manages to provide a new way of seeing a subject that remains bigger than any one film can deal with.

But Saul becomes fixated on the idea that this boy must have a proper burial, and the rest of the film follows him as he roams the camp in a near-suicidal fashion trying to find a Rabbi to perform the last rites. As a medical curio to the Nazi doctors, he doesnвЂ™t survive for long. ItвЂ™s while doing this that he discovers a young boy who has somehow survived the gas. At first SaulвЂ™s job is to help calm the new arrivals and herd them into the gas chambers he and his fellows then collect their clothes (checking them for valuables) and help drag the corpses away.

His position is a mixed blessing: the sonderkommando get to live while thousands die, but their own deaths are assured as part of the Holocaust theyвЂ™ve helped perpetuate. The year is 1944, the place is Auschwitz, and Saul AuslГ¤nder (GГ©za RГ¶hrig) is a member of the sonderkommando, Jewish inmates who the camp guards use to perform menial tasks. ItвЂ™s a brilliant literalisation of his central characterвЂ™s mindset trapped in a hell and forced to serve his tormentors as a cog in a machine whose output is death, the only way for him to make it through each day is to avoid facing the horrendous reality head-on.

Thirty-eight year-old Hungarian director LГЎszlГі NemesвЂ™ debut film is shot in shallow focus, with his lead constantly front and centre while everything around him is lost in a fuzzy murk. Son of Saul brings that horror home in perhaps the most counter-intuitive way imaginable: by focusing so closely on one man that everything going on around him is a blur. For all its ghastly aspects, the sheer scale of the Holocaust is where its true horror lies.

Watch son of saul