Son of Saul

A very authentical portrayal of the hell of a concentration camp that focuses on the Sonderkommando, auxiliary Jews who send other Jews to the gas chambers and also to the ovens. What annoyed me was the main character, as the camera took close-ups of his face quite often and he wasn't a very pretty sight to look at, which might still be passable if he didn't also annoy me with his behaviour, as he spends the whole film looking for a rabbi and wanting to bury his son, and that didn't sit right with me as the central plot. If the film had focused more on the riot or shown footage of the gas chambers or the ovens, it could have been a competition to A Serbian Film. Still, this is a disturbing film from a horrific setting and I don't envy anyone who had to endure it. The unconventional cinematography is interesting. Decent, but I could imagine it being better.70% (09/11/2018)

A movie without the past and the future, which will be (not only because of this) described as a holocaust-style Come and See (1985). Thanks to the chosen format of "long scenes over the shoulder", it is unusually intense, suggestive (amazing sound work!) and gets under you skin very quickly and for a long time. Maybe too much, because it's constantly moving and it is so dynamic that the viewer (nor the character) will be sitting on the edge of his char all the time. What can happen is that the viewer becomes used to it by the end of the movie, although the horrors during the Sonderkommando shift are shown "seemingly accidentally", are sidelined and presented as a daily routine. But as a result it is even more terrifying and disturbing. No matter whether you become used to it or not and whether you can get over it or not, it is indisputable that Saul's son is one of the exceptions confirming the rule that the film's qualities and the importance and urgency of the theme form one functional unit, which rightfully deserves "festival fame". If nothing else, it is because such a view of the film depiction of the Holocaust through the industrialization of death was desperately needed, because although these events are captured in literature from time to time they are almost never depicted in a movie. (10/09/2015)

(BE2CAN, Lucerna) I’m doubting between four, in recognition for its merits, and three for the experience. After all the hype from Cannes I was expecting more. It’s a different take on the monstrous machinery of the Holocaust from the point of view of a poor bastard who gets mixed up in it. The intention is clear, the execution is undoubtedly appropriate, but I’m not sure it’s enough for me in 107 minutes… (10/10/2015)

Just as strongly as the opening half-hour impressed me, I was (except for the very end) put off by the following hour, drawn out and full of situations that seemed, by and large, too far-fetched. Of course, I don't know how things were in the extermination camps, and it's quite possible that such things could have happened there, but the constant moving of the body, the moving from one ward to another, the excuses... It was a bit too fantastic for my taste and the realistic concept was just too much. Despite all the criticisms (one of which would be directed at the creators of the Czech subtitles, who God knows why, didn't translate everything and I had the feeling that I missed something important, because I can only say segedýn in Hungarian), I can't deny the film's absolutely fantastic processing, the idea "Let's make the viewer feel like the main character.", the repulsively impressive cinematography, and the excellently done sound, which simply cannot be the same at home in front of the computer or TV as in a cinema full of unsettled people. If I ever get the courage, I'll watch it again. But now I'd rather have another comedy, please. (02/24/2016)

The European film event of the year, which after months of anticipation, and also due to its immediate status as a unique auteur work, left me with slightly mixed impressions. Formally, it's undoubtedly very impressive; the intimacy of the camera, which could be described as documentary-like, focusing on the immediate circle of the surrounding chaotic hell, the absence of music or any upbeat sounds, and finally the "stripped down" performance of the silent protagonist bring to the world of film a hitherto untamed, visually deliberately austere but overwhelmingly naturalistic view of the Nazi murder machine, so different from many Hollywood melodramas. The opening minutes will bring to their knees anyone capable of the least empathy. Unfortunately, the film lasts 107 minutes, during which it retains all of its exceptional character traits, but the script is not always enough to fully meet such high stylistic and ideological ambitions, and the subplots about the revolt and the actual running of Auschwitz somehow seep through the main thematic line in an indifferent, inconsistent and confusing way (which may be considered intentional, but I simply grew tired of this approach after the opening minutes). That said, the feeling of hopelessness and suffering is omnipresent and at least in this respect Son of Saul also fulfils its mission to perfection. 75% (04/07/2016)