Perfectly realised.

Rating: 10/10 (30 April 2016)

László Nemes' "Son of Saul" follows "Saul", who works as a member of the Sonderkommando (prisoners forced to assist the Nazis) at the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. He fights for human decency by trying to give a dead Jewish boy a proper Jewish burial and save him from the flames.
This film is nothing short of exceptional.
The cinematography by Mátyás Erdély is exceptionally well done. Throughout the whole film, the camera stays very close to Saul as we only see and hear what he is capable of seeing and hearing. The vast majority of what we see around Saul as we follow him, is out constantly out of focus. This is not only showing a tasteful amount of restraint, it also makes sense seeing as how Saul himself is trying to avert his eyes from the hell around him.
Along with the exceptional cinematography comes haunting sound design. The chaos around Saul is extremely well captured and realised. The screams of people, the gunshots, the sound of fire and metal, it's all very well done. Sound designer Tamás Zányi put five whole months into the sound design and does it ever show.
The performances are all perfectly naturalistic, especially from our lead Géza Röhrig who plays Saul. Everything from the expressions to their body language is haunting realistic and makes everything feel very real.
This film is nothing short of exceptional. Director László Nemes and everyone else put their hearts and souls into this film and created something truly special. It's very disturbing and sad, but it's also VERY well made by extremely talented people.
A must watch.
Rating: 10/10