A "tour" at the heart of a death camp

Rating: 5/10 (25 May 2015)

For a certain type of people it is of extraordinary importance how some pieces of art (especially if in the focus of a widely spread debate) are being "judged", and I'm of this type too. I saw the film under perfect circumstances, except that days before this event I was exposed to a quotation from a review by a fellow journalist working for a major newspaper (and so given access to see the film before the secondary level of the Hungarian press to which I belong, I gladly admit). The quotation from that article was in fact a verdict, stating that "director Laszlo Nemes not only had caught up on the world's film making but went beyond". Although it was somewhat disturbing me, the situation was not new to me at all, so, when watching the film I was in a comfortable, open state of mind.
My encounter with the movie didn't turn out well though, not only did I not like it, I did not enjoy it either – whereas, however inappropriate this may sound, I enjoyed, I took pleasure in, watching Schindler' list, for example, not the mention the Woman in Gold, the latest Holocaust film-experience I have just had.
When one writes a review, I believe, s/he should share her/his experience and give an (esthetic) analysis on why that could have happened the way it did, I mean, the encounter with the given piece of art. As for my analysis, I think I did not like the fact that there was a huge gap between the (focal) "pane" of the protagonist, Saul (Géza Röhrig), and the "background".
This problem that I encountered was not of optical nature, of course. What I didn't like (and still oppose as an idea) was that the working of the Holocaust machinery at the heart of this death camp was a mere background. I don't object the "banal" approach (in the Arendt sense), I don't object that it is used as a background, my problem is that it is used as a 'mere' background. I mean, it's just there all the time throughout the whole film, without the protagonist interfering with it. The film does not even disclose his relation to the 'background' happening. He's supposed to be a 'Sonderkommando' member which brings up a whole lot of questions about how he was taking part in that mass murdering there, how he was perceiving that reality, etc, etc. But we get no depiction of his state of mind, of his character – neither of his original character nor that of his 'Sonderkommando' state. For me this was and is a problem. Cause like this, it all breaks down to a weird movie experience in which the main character is coming and going from given point A-s to point B-s, and the viewer is convicted to follow him for the appearance while s/he is actually watching, as s/he's supposed to, the continuous happening in the background.
It is obvious that the director wanted the viewer to have this "tour" through a death camp, to share this "banal" reality from a participant's POV. I have no objections to this. My problem is that in the foreground no such thing takes place which – like in other films – would involve the viewer and offer her/him an opportunity to 'internalize' the experiences of the main on screen characters. Plus, a movie needs a story. And showing a main character wanting to get from point A to a point B is not yet a story: we need to be introduced to his motives, plus we need to be "informed" in real time of his state of mind, including his relation to his mission, as well as to the background happening. Last but not least, the foreground story has to be believable and followed, you can't put anything there saying that it's the background what matters anyway. I mean, you can, but this is what – I think – it looks like.
As a fellow Hungarian, I should be happy about this film's success, but to my surprise I'm not. I'm happy about this film being made, but not about its immense success, and I know what the case seems to be, but it's not (if it was jealousy, I'd be working on it). The reason why, I think, I don't like this huge success at Cannes is because like this the discussion about this movie is over, it's impossible. It's over before it could even have started, it's over before the film's premier. So, I can only call this another negative case of "peer pressure", I think. And as for the film, I only wish that people wouldn't have had a chance to see it for themselves. Then, I believe, it would have had a positive (progressive) impact on the culture.