Son of Saul

I quite enjoyed the inner conflict of the main character in the first half because I actually experienced it too. I wondered for a long time if it was rational to devote my energy to a dead child in such moving circumstances ("because of the dead you forgot about the living"), only to realize later that the central character often really doesn't give a damn about any rationality. Son of Saul is an extremely intimate portrait of a broken man for whom the self-destructive and quite obviously irrational (given the situation) need for a ritualistic act becomes the only life purpose. The extremely evocative POV cinematography and (thankfully) mostly out-of-focus shots of human carnage are quite disturbing, and the atmosphere of pervasive evil and death radiates from the screen in a way that's not pretty. [80%] (11/29/2020)

A clever combination of quasi-first person POV cinematography that in documentary fashion draws you into the storyline and a horror environment of a real-life hell that no one wants to experience from this close. No word other than “hell” is more apt for the night scenes at the pits. Not bad for a Hungarian director’s debut. If you haven't seen The Gray Zone and you don’t know the term "Sonderkommando", this movie will kill you. (10/14/2015)

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)

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)