Hungarian Film Festival 2017: Laszlo Nemes' Son of Saul
The first image that we see in Laszlo Nemes' "Son of Saul" (2015, Hungary) is that of a green forest - blurred, out-of-focus, barely visible. The camera lingers on it for some more seconds until a barely-recognizable figure emerges, walking towards the camera until we clearly see in close-up the face of a man (Geza Rohrig). Another man briefly speaks to him and then they go about their "work" which, we eventually learn, involves rounding up newly-arrived Jews from all over Europe (men, women and children, young and old alike;what they term as "transports") in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, at the time of Adolf Hitler's fascist rule and his implementation of the "Final Solution", under the pretext that they are to take a "shower" before working at the camp's "workshops", but in reality they are just being herded towards the gas chambers - their death. As screams and bangings are heard from the gas chamber, the Sonderkommando (the designation of the man in question, who's a Jew himself, forced into such a horrible task by the Nazi officers, which really just serves as a temporary reprieve, for those who've been designated as such will eventually march towards the chamber in the long run) quietly resigns in a corner, with a nearly-catatonic face as if already synthesized from the horrors around him.
In the book "The Informed Heart", the Austrian psychologist Bruno Bettelheim (a proponent of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis) details a vivid and insightful first-hand account of what it is to be imprisoned in a Nazi concentration/labor camp (he was imprisoned in one from 1938 to 1939), while providing a psychoanalytical interpretation of fascism, the authoritarian personality and living in an extreme situation. In cinema, nothing really has come close to depicting the inner workings of a concentration camp that adheres to reality as much as possible as "Son of Saul" (yes, this isn't "Schindler's List" or "Life is Beautiful"). And in terms of the filmic portrayal of the Holocaust that really leaves such a crushing effect on one's soul, that doesn't attempt to romanticize or sanitize it, Nemes' film is the closest we can get to Elem Klimov's masterpiece "Come and See". In fact, Nemes himself acknowledges how much he owes to Klimov in the making of his film (as can be seen in the forest setting or in the hopeless struggle to free oneself from the trappings of a death chamber). But the 40-year-old director makes us feel more trapped in such a hell on earth: with the aid of cinematographer Matyas Erdely, he employs a boxed 4:3 aspect ratio, in which the camera consistently zeroes in on Saul (the titular Sonderkommando), oftentimes in extreme close-up and long tracking shot, wherever it is that he's going and whatever it is that he's doing. This has the effect of making all the violence and horror happen on the fringes or nearly off-screen, in an out-of-focus shot, all the hell simply registering on Saul's worn-out and emotionally-drained face.
And the irony is that we just can't unsee them, in the same way that Saul can't. The visual and aural aesthetics that Nemes employs in the film are really immersive: we get to experience what Saul is experiencing. It's through Saul's face that we scramble for a reason as to why the world has fallen apart this way. All the sounds of horror that define the era that Saul is living in, which are mostly depicted off-screen - the wailings, the cries, the screams, the orders, the whispers, the gunshots, the chaos, the inferno - we also get to hear as if we were part of that era. Any semblance of humanity has been totally diminished;nothing makes sense anymore. If we are to use the term, this is indeed a "Godless" period in history. That's why we can perhaps read Saul's self-imposed mission to give a young boy (also a gas chamber victim;initially alive, but eventually finished off by a Nazi doctor) a proper and respectful burial officiated by a rabbi as an act of atonement or as an expiation of guilt. At a time when there was such an utter disregard for human life, when mass killing in the name of an extremely lopsided autocratic ideology was carried out blindly and relentlessly, one small act of moral righteousness was probably what one needed to make sense of a world gone totally astray. But, one may wonder, why that boy? We learn later on, coming from Saul himself, that the boy is actually his...son (thus, the film's title). Though a fellow Sonderkommando is in doubt, for he claims that Saul doesn't in fact have one, to which the latter doesn't really offer much of a counter. But then again, we don't care anymore if Saul is telling the truth or not. For what matters now is that someone still shows compassion and respect for a fellow human in such a very dark and cruel time.
Thus, somewhat similar to what Marion Cotillard's character did in the Dardenne brothers' "Two Days, One Night", Saul embarks on a nearly-quixotic quest to find someone who, under such extreme circumstances, would still do the most humane thing to do (in this case, a rabbi). Along the way, which can be compared to what Bettelheim chronicled in his book, we get to witness the kind of politics at work among the camp prisoners themselves: for example, how they are actually secretly planning an uprising against the German officers or how they can be no different from their captors in treating their fellow prisoners as "Jewish rats". From this, we can see that, unlike some films about the Holocaust, Nemes doesn't aim to draw a clear line between who's good and who's bad - though it doesn't necessarily mean that we don't feel where his sympathies lie. Rather, he doesn't shy away from admitting the total nihilism of it all: that in a genocidal era, everyone and everything are headed towards doom, destruction and death. There's no such thing as a hero or a savior here, lifting the masses from the pits of hell. As much as the director displays a virtuoso and unflinching filmmaking here, this one is truly an uncomfortable viewing experience. We may actually accuse Nemes (who also penned the screenplay together with Clara Royer, a French novelist) of ultimately providing more provocation than insight with the film. But to my mind, one of the darkest periods in human history can't be more potently portrayed cinematically in any other way. Preachy as this may sound, but we can't learn from the mistakes of the past enough.
As it is, Nemes' realization of his vision won't be possible without an actor who's an exact match for that vision. A Jew in real life himself (of his own volition), Geza Rohrig isn't really acting, but is living through it all. He's keenly aware that, though the camera follows him throughout the film, it's really not about him, but about all the hundreds of people around him, whose fates are sealed by the megalomaniacal obsession of an awful regime. Seldom speaking (if he does, only in whispery bits and pieces, as do the other Sonderkommandos, in contrast to the ferocious orders of the Nazi officers), it's through his face, a wellspring of pain and suffering, that we feel the weight of all the horrors happening around him (brings to mind once again the face of the young boy in "Come and See", aging beyond his years right before our own eyes). It's a stunning performance that draws us right into the maelstrom, allowing for no escape or retribution. At one point, Saul is taunted by his fellows for playing with their lives because of his steadfast resolve to bury the dead. To which Saul meaningfully replies: "We're already dead". The great irony is that, even then, he's able to pulsate with whatever left there is of life all the things around him.
The final shot of Saul's face, which is the first time that we see it in that state, is incredible as it is transcendental. For we realize that, after trying to do the right deed for the boy, he has probably come at peace with whatever fate brings to him at that exact moment. And so "Son of Saul" ends with how it begins, but with a sense of irony: a young boy, after being freed from the clutches of a Nazi officer, runs deep into the green forest, all alive and well even if with no certain future, as we hear from a distance the sounds of gunfire, which lamentably seal the fate of Saul and his fellows. Yet, the image of the forest is clear this time.
(Geza Rohrig is a silent but not necessarily inactive witness to the horrors of an extermination camp in Laszlo Nemes' "Son of Saul")
In the book "The Informed Heart", the Austrian psychologist Bruno Bettelheim (a proponent of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis) details a vivid and insightful first-hand account of what it is to be imprisoned in a Nazi concentration/labor camp (he was imprisoned in one from 1938 to 1939), while providing a psychoanalytical interpretation of fascism, the authoritarian personality and living in an extreme situation. In cinema, nothing really has come close to depicting the inner workings of a concentration camp that adheres to reality as much as possible as "Son of Saul" (yes, this isn't "Schindler's List" or "Life is Beautiful"). And in terms of the filmic portrayal of the Holocaust that really leaves such a crushing effect on one's soul, that doesn't attempt to romanticize or sanitize it, Nemes' film is the closest we can get to Elem Klimov's masterpiece "Come and See". In fact, Nemes himself acknowledges how much he owes to Klimov in the making of his film (as can be seen in the forest setting or in the hopeless struggle to free oneself from the trappings of a death chamber). But the 40-year-old director makes us feel more trapped in such a hell on earth: with the aid of cinematographer Matyas Erdely, he employs a boxed 4:3 aspect ratio, in which the camera consistently zeroes in on Saul (the titular Sonderkommando), oftentimes in extreme close-up and long tracking shot, wherever it is that he's going and whatever it is that he's doing. This has the effect of making all the violence and horror happen on the fringes or nearly off-screen, in an out-of-focus shot, all the hell simply registering on Saul's worn-out and emotionally-drained face.
And the irony is that we just can't unsee them, in the same way that Saul can't. The visual and aural aesthetics that Nemes employs in the film are really immersive: we get to experience what Saul is experiencing. It's through Saul's face that we scramble for a reason as to why the world has fallen apart this way. All the sounds of horror that define the era that Saul is living in, which are mostly depicted off-screen - the wailings, the cries, the screams, the orders, the whispers, the gunshots, the chaos, the inferno - we also get to hear as if we were part of that era. Any semblance of humanity has been totally diminished;nothing makes sense anymore. If we are to use the term, this is indeed a "Godless" period in history. That's why we can perhaps read Saul's self-imposed mission to give a young boy (also a gas chamber victim;initially alive, but eventually finished off by a Nazi doctor) a proper and respectful burial officiated by a rabbi as an act of atonement or as an expiation of guilt. At a time when there was such an utter disregard for human life, when mass killing in the name of an extremely lopsided autocratic ideology was carried out blindly and relentlessly, one small act of moral righteousness was probably what one needed to make sense of a world gone totally astray. But, one may wonder, why that boy? We learn later on, coming from Saul himself, that the boy is actually his...son (thus, the film's title). Though a fellow Sonderkommando is in doubt, for he claims that Saul doesn't in fact have one, to which the latter doesn't really offer much of a counter. But then again, we don't care anymore if Saul is telling the truth or not. For what matters now is that someone still shows compassion and respect for a fellow human in such a very dark and cruel time.
Thus, somewhat similar to what Marion Cotillard's character did in the Dardenne brothers' "Two Days, One Night", Saul embarks on a nearly-quixotic quest to find someone who, under such extreme circumstances, would still do the most humane thing to do (in this case, a rabbi). Along the way, which can be compared to what Bettelheim chronicled in his book, we get to witness the kind of politics at work among the camp prisoners themselves: for example, how they are actually secretly planning an uprising against the German officers or how they can be no different from their captors in treating their fellow prisoners as "Jewish rats". From this, we can see that, unlike some films about the Holocaust, Nemes doesn't aim to draw a clear line between who's good and who's bad - though it doesn't necessarily mean that we don't feel where his sympathies lie. Rather, he doesn't shy away from admitting the total nihilism of it all: that in a genocidal era, everyone and everything are headed towards doom, destruction and death. There's no such thing as a hero or a savior here, lifting the masses from the pits of hell. As much as the director displays a virtuoso and unflinching filmmaking here, this one is truly an uncomfortable viewing experience. We may actually accuse Nemes (who also penned the screenplay together with Clara Royer, a French novelist) of ultimately providing more provocation than insight with the film. But to my mind, one of the darkest periods in human history can't be more potently portrayed cinematically in any other way. Preachy as this may sound, but we can't learn from the mistakes of the past enough.
As it is, Nemes' realization of his vision won't be possible without an actor who's an exact match for that vision. A Jew in real life himself (of his own volition), Geza Rohrig isn't really acting, but is living through it all. He's keenly aware that, though the camera follows him throughout the film, it's really not about him, but about all the hundreds of people around him, whose fates are sealed by the megalomaniacal obsession of an awful regime. Seldom speaking (if he does, only in whispery bits and pieces, as do the other Sonderkommandos, in contrast to the ferocious orders of the Nazi officers), it's through his face, a wellspring of pain and suffering, that we feel the weight of all the horrors happening around him (brings to mind once again the face of the young boy in "Come and See", aging beyond his years right before our own eyes). It's a stunning performance that draws us right into the maelstrom, allowing for no escape or retribution. At one point, Saul is taunted by his fellows for playing with their lives because of his steadfast resolve to bury the dead. To which Saul meaningfully replies: "We're already dead". The great irony is that, even then, he's able to pulsate with whatever left there is of life all the things around him.
The final shot of Saul's face, which is the first time that we see it in that state, is incredible as it is transcendental. For we realize that, after trying to do the right deed for the boy, he has probably come at peace with whatever fate brings to him at that exact moment. And so "Son of Saul" ends with how it begins, but with a sense of irony: a young boy, after being freed from the clutches of a Nazi officer, runs deep into the green forest, all alive and well even if with no certain future, as we hear from a distance the sounds of gunfire, which lamentably seal the fate of Saul and his fellows. Yet, the image of the forest is clear this time.
(Geza Rohrig is a silent but not necessarily inactive witness to the horrors of an extermination camp in Laszlo Nemes' "Son of Saul")
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