REVIEW: Son of Saul (2015)

Order in Chaos.

Son of Saul (2015) takes place in a WW2 concentration camp. The main character, Saul (played by Géza Röhrig), is part of the sonderkommando, a group of Jewish prisoners who extend their livelihood by doing the ‘dirty work’ of the Nazis, such as leading others to the gas chambers, and cleaning up afterwards. Saul has long since numbed himself to the world around him, to his tasks, the very idea of life. He goes through the motions, without really seeing anything. It’s his method of self-preservation, and survival.

This all changes when Saul comes across the body of (what he claims to be) his son. This is what kicks off László Nemes’ astonishing feature debut. We follow Saul, in near real- time, as he fights for the proper burial of his son. Throughout it all, the camera almost never pushes outside an intimate close-up of Saul, as he moves through the camp. The depth of field is extremely shallow, allowing us a very narrow point of focus. It’s claustrophobic, and, by holding most of the death to the periphery, it never revels in it. This is the rare Holocaust drama that doesn’t feel exploitative or sensationalist. It trusts that the audience understands the context of the situation, and zeroes in on its own story.

It’s also an ingenious narrative device; by keeping the audience held to this limited perspective, Nemes completely mirrors Saul’s headspace. As he can’t allow himself to fully recognize the horror around him, neither can the viewer. There are maybe five shots in which Saul does not feature. The focus on extremely lengthy shots keeps the action continually, and almost unbearably tense.

Nemes and co-writer Clara Royer compound this strategy in their choice of character: Saul is stubbornly single-minded in his task. Where he once barely focused on anything, he becomes a machine to bury his boy. He ingratiates himself with revolutionaries within his squadron of sonderkommandos, helping them gather supplies and tricking guards – but only so far as it helps him find a rabbi for the boy. He is incidental to the revolution -and that’s where the true genius of Son of Saul comes in.

Nemes and Royer have found a way to take, on paper, what is a potentially problematic premise, and make it entirely about the secret, beating heart of humanity. Saul does what he does, because he desperately needs a purpose to crawl out of his current mental state. Even if it means he must ignore those around him.

“You’ve honoured the dead at the expense of the living,” a character remarks to Saul late in the film. To a certain extent, they’re right; Saul forsakes life for his task. He uses his fellow prisoners, and he places them in extremely dangerous positions. In his quest for his supposed son, however, Saul finds an opportunity for spiritual redemption. He’s attempting to give proper respect for the dead and to honour the lost. In misery, he latches on an abstractly noble purpose, one that encompasses all of humanity. He refuses to let this become one more meaningless death.

Son of Saul is able to find a palatable story in the midst of the horror, one that allows us to extrapolate the pain and loss surrounding the protagonist. Don’t be deterred by the subject matter. Son of Saul is not all miserable, and it is not exploitative. It is simply a gripping thriller that uses its setting to explore a universal need.

Rating: 4.5/5