World War II flicks are always good Oscar bait; at least this one offers something fresh!

Rating: 8/10 (11 March 2016)

'SON OF SAUL': Four Stars (Out of Five)
This year's Oscar winning Best Foreign Language film, is this World War II drama flick. It's about a concentration camp prisoner, who's forced to burn the bodies of his own people, that goes on an obsessive mission to give a deceased boy a proper burial. The movie was directed by first time feature filmmaker Laszlo Nemes; and it was written by Nemes and Clara Royer. The film stars Geza Rohrig; a New York City-based Hungarian poet (that hadn't acted since the 1980s!). It's received mostly rave reviews from critics, and I mostly agree with them.
The story takes place in a 1944 Auschwitz concentration camp. Saul Auslander (Rohrig) is a Hungarian-Jewish prisoner there, that's forced to help cremate fellow Jews. One day he notices that a young boy is still breathing; after being gassed in a Nazi gas chamber. The boy is killed, by a prison doctor, and an autopsy is ordered. Saul makes it his mission to rescue the corpse; and give it a proper burial. He spends the next day-and-a-half trying to locate a rabbi to help him.
The movie is oddly filmed in the 'found footage' format; which isn't possible (given the time period it's set in) but it's still an interesting directing tool. It makes the film seem more claustrophobic, but it also makes it seem much slower-paced (which can be very frustrating at times). Overall I found the movie to be very creative, interesting and horrific; and (like other films of it's type) it seems just as much like a horror movie as a drama. World War II flicks are always good Oscar bait; at least this one offers something fresh, and original, as well.
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