Where we truly learn, what hell on earth truly is

Rating: 9/10 (11 February 2018)

The Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany in World War II is a touchy topic for any movie. Numerous documentaries have graphically shown the camps, the aftermath and the tools; writers and visual artists have expounded viscerally and poignantly for over half a century, and for lasting effect; and, of course, Hollywood and others have given us many biographical or fictional narratives to function as vehicles for holocaust commentary.
None of the above, in my opinion, comes anywhere near the power of this movie, by first time writer/director, Nemes Laszo.
Initially, the movie title intrigued me: Son of Saul. Which biblical Saul? I wondered. The first few minutes resolved that inquiry when it became evident that Saul Ausländer (Geza Röhrig) is one of the Hungarian-Jewish inmates of the camp assigned - as a member of the Sonderkommando i.e. Special Command - to persecute Jewish prisoners by assisting with herding them into gas chambers to their premature, unavoidable death. The irony of Saul's surname here - in English, Foreigner - serves to align this modern Saul with, naturally, Saul of Tarsus, Jewish and Roman citizen, and hence foreigner, who also persecuted the Jews - that is, until he experienced his life-changing epiphany on the road to Damascus.
Röhrig the actor is phlegmatic to the point of being automaton, allowing virtually zero emotion on his face while he, as Saul, ritually and repetitively completes his horrific, daily routine of dispensing death to his fellow Jews. The hand-held camera is almost always on his face or the back of his head as we follow him everywhere in the camp, giving us a voyeuristic sense of heightened observation or even quasi-participation - a disturbingly unsettling feeling. Always in the background, and at the edges, the chaotic sights, unbearable sounds and unforgivable sins of the perpetrators while victims are summarily shot, shoved into gas chambers, thrown into fire, bludgeoned and beaten. These are Saul's days, staying alive for as long as he can, while consigning his humanity to the darkest depths of his persona....
Until, unexpectedly, he discovers a young boy still alive - just - in the pile of bodies within a gas chamber: an apparent miracle. It's not clear if Saul knows him, or is even related to the boy. But, from that moment, Saul sets out to get the boy away to safety; and in apparent total disregard for his own life or, for that matter, the lives of his Sonderkommando accomplices in criminal anarchy. Thereafter, we continue to follow Saul as he continues his efforts to achieve his goal before he, also, is consigned to the same fate as all other victims.
The denouement, when it comes, is realistic, inevitable and expected, I think - despite the dramatic twist the director inserts shortly before. The setting, acting, direction and camera work are simply outstanding. Never before, in all my time watching movies (sixty-five years and counting), have I been as close to a sense of reality as in this effort. There is harrowing, but also uplifting imagery in this story I will never forget.
Highly recommended for mature adults and those interested in holocaust history. Nine out of ten.