Son of Saul Review
By David Kempler
Buried in Pain
Next up in the endless parade of Holocaust films is "Son of Saul". Somehow, this one manages to carve out an area where it's hard to believe there is any virgin land left. The setting is inside of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the people being focused on are the Sonderkommando, a group of prisoners who were employees in the camp.
Their job was to welcome the newly arrived guests and instruct them to strip off their clothing so they could be ushered into a room where they could take showers. The guests would hang their clothes on hooks and place their suitcases off to the side. Once naked, they were hustled off to the room where they were gassed to death. When the gassing was complete, the Sonderkommando went back into the room, dragged out the corpses and cleaned up for the next group. It was a process that repeated continually.
Within the camp, and among the Sonderkommando, there are two other more personalized stories unfolding. A group of prisoners are planning an escape attempt. It is essential to their survival because at some point in the not too far distant future, it will be them that will be forced into the gas chambers. However, the primary plot revolves around Saul Ausländer (Geza Röhrig). That is abundantly clear from the very first shot, which is a close-up of Saul's face from a handheld camera. Quite a bit of the action involves close-ups of Saul's face and the action around him from his point of view.
When Saul goes into the gas chamber after a mass extermination he notices that one young boy has miraculously survived. He carries the unconscious boy to the doctor in the autopsy room. The doctor then promptly finishes the murder of the young boy. Then the truth hits Saul. The young boy was his son. As farfetched as this may sound, the reason for it is explained.
The rest of "Son of Saul" involves the only thing that now matters to Saul. He wants his son to get a proper burial, presided over by a rabbi. Saul is not a religious man, but for some reason, this is the way it must be. It may sound absurd to us, but in a world where everything is absurd, who can question what makes sense.
Röhrig is utterly haunting as Saul. His nearly expressionless face conveys a pain and desperation that hopefully none of us can even conceive of as possible. "Son of Saul" is tough viewing, but some will find it impossible to look away even though almost no actual violence can be seen by the audience. Director Laszlo Nemes manages to keep all of the horrors just out of our view. This keeps us focused on Saul's task and that alone is enough to understand the hell we have been thrust into along with Saul. Whether Saul will be successful or not almost doesn't matter. Nothing really matters when you're already in hell.
