Son of Saul (2015)

                “Son of Saul” is an addition to the Holocaust subgenre of war movies.  You may be wondering what more can be done with this prolific subgenre, but “Son of Saul” proves there is still life left in Holocaust films.  It is a Hungarian film by Laszlo Nemes, who co-wrote the screenplay.  Although the movie is fictional, he did extensive research, especially from “The Scrolls of Auschwitz”.  That work is the first person accounts of Sonderkommandos.  He also had Holocaust experts as technical advisers.  The movie was lauded by Elie Weisel and Claude Lanzmann, the director of “Shoah”.  The movie was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes and won for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.  It also won the Golden Globe.

                The movie opens with a definition for “Sonderkommando” for those who aren’t familiar with this Holocaust term.  Or for those who have not seen “The Grey Zone”.  Each death camp had these units which consisted of male prisoners who were allowed to live a little longer and given preferential treatment in exchange for working the gas chambers.  The movie focuses on one of them, Saul Auslander (Geza Rohrig).  He is on screen almost all the time.  The movie is very intimate.  The movie opens with a sensory-assaulting scene of the Jews being loaded onto a train.  Not original, but in this case the cinematography is disconcertingly out of focus.  The blurriness is balanced by a cacophony of sounds realistic to the scene.  A baby cries, a dog barks, the train lets out steam, there is a band playing.  This style continues into the gas chamber.  We have to use sounds to fill in for what is not shown.  This movie expects a lot from its viewers.  Saul’s job is to check the corpses for valuables, remove the bodies, and then clean the floor.  He is dispassionate about it. He has stowed away his humanity, but then it returns when he witnesses a Nazi doctor suffocating a young boy who had miraculously survived the gas.  Saul makes it his mission to work around the system to give the child a decent burial.  This will require a rabbi.  Saul takes incredible chances and goes through a series of adventures to try to achieve his goal.  His quest for a rabbi results in his involvement with shoveling ashes into the local river and the disposal of a shipment of Jews via a pit.  This scene in particular is one of the most realistically horrific in Holocaust film history.  The sounds and glimpses of sights set it apart.  While he is on his quest,  Saul is also caught up in a rebellion led by the Sonderkommandos.

                “Son of Saul” is mesmerizing tour de force of cinematography and sound.  The sound design took five months and included eight different languages.  Cinematographer Matyas Erdely mixes shallow focus with deep focus and liberal use of out of focus.  The gas chamber scene features a two minute take followed by a three minute one.  There are a lot of close-ups, especially of Saul.  Rohrig is great with facial expressions.  It was his feature film debut and he dominates.  He should have been nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards.  His Saul is no saint.  You have to wonder if his obsession is detrimental to the greater good.  No other character makes much of an impression although there are some interesting people that Saul encounters.  The movie has no villain.  The Holocaust is the villain.  Saul is put in a Hell on Earth and fights it as best he can.  Through Saul we see some aspects of the Holocaust that are rarely seen in a Holocaust movie.  However, when it comes to the two historical incidents covered in the film  (the finding of a live child in the gas chamber and the rebellion of the Sonderkommandos), the movie does not instruct much.  It uses those true events to tell the story of the fictional Saul.  The movie is so focused on him that it is hard to figure out what the bigger picture is.  For that reason, the movie needs to be paired with “The Grey Zone”.  Don’t watch one without seeing the other.  Watch them back to back if you want to overdose on depressing.

                “Son of Saul” falls just short of being a great movie.  It does have some predictability in its unique plot.  Saul is unrealistically lucky and his quest seems too easy at times.  It loses some credibility towards the end.  However, those are minor quibbles for a movie that is a must-see.

GRADE  =  A

BEST REVIEWED: 2016

                It is time for my annual list of best movies that I reviewed this past year.  At this stage in my blog, I would have thought that I would have seen every war movie of consequence, but that is far from being true.  I still have many movies on my to-be-watched list for this year, so I think I’ll be able to do one of these lists next January.  This particular list is a combination of movies I have never seen before, movies I saw in the theater, and some older favorites that I was reviewing for the first time.

10.  Son of Saul (2015)  Just when you think you have seen every good Holocaust movie, you run into another one.  This movie is a Hungarian film based on an incident where a child was found alive in the gas chamber at Auschwitz.  A sonderkommando takes it upon himself to give the boy a decent burial.  The cinematography is the highlight as the lens focuses on Saul throughout.  The sound effects also stand out.  This is a movie for anyone who is interested in the Holocaust and who enjoys outside the box filmmaking.

9.    The Ascent (1977)  This is a black and white Soviet film set in WWII.  Two partisans go off on a foraging expedition and are captured by the Germans.  They both face the dilemma of collaborating and living or being patriotic and dying.  This is another movie with eye-popping cinematography.  The acting is great and the dialogue, although sparse, is thought-provoking. 

8.  Sharpe’s Rifles  (1993)  I am a huge fan of the Sharpe series of historical novels set in the Napoleonic Wars.  I recently rewatched the movie based on the first novel.  Although made for TV, it is an excellent recreation of the novel and introduces Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe.  Because of the low budget, it does not have a sweep to it, but it is excellent at character development and the story has several well-meshing arcs.  It includes a strong female character, which is rare for a war movie.

7.  Admiral:  Roaring Currents  (2014)  This is a South Korean film based on a naval battle in the late 16^th Century.  The Korean navy took on a Japanese fleet, but the movie is not so much a history lesson as an excuse for some of that gonzo Korean action.  Your ass will be sore from the kicking the battle scene delivers.  It lasts 61 minutes!  There is an outstanding main character and a loathsome villain.  The music is epic and the cinematography matches it.

6.  Wooden Crosses  (1932)  This is the French answer to “All Quiet on the Western Front”.  A replacement joins a seasoned unit and witnesses the horrors of war and the comradeship that makes it tolerable.  The movie is a realistic depiction of trench warfare.  There is a quantity and quality to the combat scenes.  It’s real strength is in its portrayal of soldier behavior.

5.   The Grey Zone  (2001)  A second movie about the same incident – the discovery of a living soul in the gas chamber at Auschwitz.  Before you say “what an amazing coincidence!”, I watched “Son of Saul” as a companion to this.  This movie is less micro as it also covers the rebellion by the sonderkommandoes.  It is an excellent history lesson and very well-presented.  The acting is excellent, even by David Arquette.  It has a blend of cinematography.  Most importantly, it gives you a lot to think about.  What would you do?  This is one of the best Holocaust movies.

4.  The Execution of Private Slovik  (1974)  It took me a long time to find this gem.  I had seen it when it first appeared on TV.  It tells the story of the only American soldier in WWII to be executed for desertion.  In that respect, it tells a story that needed to be told and it does it quite well for a low budget effort.  It helps that the lead is Martin Sheen who is outstanding in the role.  The nonlinear flash backs to Slovik’s past work well in setting up his “crime”.  The movie does not preach, but it is excellent at taking us through the court-martial procedure that led to Slovik’s death.

3.  Hornblower:  The Duel  (1998)  Here is the second movie on my list that is based on a series of historical fiction.  Horatio Hornblower is in some ways the equivalent of Richard Sharpe when it comes to Napoleonic naval warfare.  This made-for-TV film introduces the character, played by Ioan Gruffudd.  The movie uses scenarios from several of the novels with the central arc of Hornblower’s conflict with one of the greatest war movie villains.  The production values are quite good for a television movie.  The acting is stellar and the characters are vivid and well-developed.  The movie is an excellent tutorial on the life of tars.  There is also some good action and not one, but two duels.

2.  Star Trek:  Rogue One  (2016)  I recently reviewed this so you know I was thrilled by it.  I treated it as a war movie and it works as such.  The motley crew gathering and subsequent questing is an entertaining lead-in to the kick-ass multi-battle finale.   I had fun finding references to famous battles.  The reason why it did not place first is I can’t be sure I did not overrate it because there hasn’t been a good Star Wars movie since Empire.  Relatively speaking, it is a masterpiece.

    

1.  All Quiet on the Western Front (1979)  Here is the third made-for-TV movie to make the list.  When I eventually get around to compiling my 100 Best War Movies list, it will include a number of television productions.  Most "best of" lists do not include this type of war movie, but I feel some of the best of the genre are made for TV.  In this case, I would argue that a television movie might even surpass the cinematic original.  The 1979 version is sadly forgotten by many, but it is an excellent retelling of the novel.  The battle scenes cannot match the original, but the acting is better and it obviously has a more modern feel to it.  This movie brought the greatest war novel to the “I only watch color movies” audience.  And it brought it in a remarkably underrated package.  My review is of the extended version.  That review will be my next post.