A masterpiece that goes deep into the horrors of the Holocaust / A pioneer cinematography and a breathtaking leading performance

Rating: 10/10 (27 August 2016)

Saul fia is a masterpiece that goes deep into the horrors of the Holocaust. Director László Nemes makes a feature film debut that is spectacular. The camera is astonishing and the performance of Géza Röhrig is breathtaking. Without showing much, we can hear the screams of all of the innocent men, women and children who were massacred and gassed by the Nazi Germans & Austrians. The macabre task of the Sonderkommando is brilliantly depicted in this film.
I confess that I cried the first 15 minutes of the movie. Saul fia is really hard to watch, but it is a crucial work of art for this cybernetic and superficial century where the Holocaust seems already out of fashion. The film shows in an unorthodox way the macabre gassing described by the few testimonies of the few Auschwitz Sonderkommando who survived the war (Shlomo Venezia, a Jewish Greek Sonderkommando, prisoner number 182727: Sonderkommando. Dans l'enfer des chambres à gaz; Filip Müller, a Jewish Slovak Sonderkommando, prisoner number 29236: Sonderbehandlung. Drei Jahre in der Krematorien und Gaskammern von Auschwitz; and the shocking drawings by David Olère, a Jewish Polish Sonderkommando). Dario Gabbai, prisoner number 182568, Shlomo Venezia's cousin and one of the last remaining Sonderkommando saw Saul fia and praised the film.
In my opinion Saul fia should have been nominated in all the categories and should have won ALL the Oscars (Best Movie, Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Actor in a Leading Role). Saul fia triumphed at the Cannes Festival and got the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year.
Saul fia is a MASTERPIECE with capital letters. Something for never forgetting what Germany & Austria did and what they never paid for. The film is in Hungarian, Polish, Yiddish, German, Russian, French, Greek, Slovak & Hebrew, and it depicts brilliantly the chaos of languages (the Tower of Babel) of the Nazi extermination & concentration camps.
A must see. Definitely, the best movie of 2015, and, in my opinion, the best movie about the Holocaust ever made.
The best: the cinematography (Mátyás Erdély), absolutely pioneer, the breathtaking performance by Géza Röhrig, and the music (László Melis).
The worst: nothing.