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See photos: 19 Cannes Movies on the Radar: Hot Titles, Must-See Picks (Photos) “Son of Saul” does something remarkable: It finds an original way to look at the Holocaust cinematically, bringing a startling energy and a fresh look to a subject already explored countless times onscreen. (On the other hand, if I were a first-time Cannes director eligible for the Camera d’Or, which goes to the best debut film from any section of the festival, I’d be sweating about now.) Some early viewers have already talked about it winning the Palme d’Or, which is jumping the gun a bit on Day 2.
#SON OF SAUL REVIEW MOVIE#
That may have been a question before “Son of Saul” screened, but the answer is now blindingly obvious: This movie made it into the main competition because it deserves to be there. The question hanging over Thursday’s first screenings of “Son of Saul,” which has its official premiere on Friday, is whether Nemes had produced such a standout work that Cannes programmers were forced to reconsider their usual policy, or whether they came in determined to change their stuffy image and simply used Nemes to achieve that end. This is a staggering and completely devastating depiction of that horror and Nemes would be a worthy winner here in Cannes.Even Xavier Dolan, a filmmaking wunderkind if there ever was one, had four of his first five movies accepted at Cannes, but was famously kept out of the main competition until last year’s “Mommy.” (He made his irritation public - but this year, as if to show there are no hard feelings, he’s back as a juror.)Īlso read: Jake Gyllenhaal Hits Hard in ‘Southpaw’ Glimpse as Weinstein Company Unveils Strong 2015 Lineup in CannesĪll of which is to say that Nemes has pulled off a rare feat, landing in the main competition with his directorial debut. The dead teenage boy represents all those bodies, and Ausländer’s desperate attempt to give him a decent burial is a way of salvaging his own humanity and carving out some decency amidst the horror. When one of the prisoners from Ausländer’s village states that he has no child, which our hero denies, it is of little consequence. More than any other film dealing with the death camps, this film shares much with Vasily Grossman’s The Road, whose account of the Soviet troops liberating the camp and the survivors’ eyewitness accounts are equally harrowing and haunting. This is full-immersion treatment and we feel imprisoned in this stifling and disgusting place. Tomas Zany’s sound bombards us with the screams, gunshots and factory noises of the camp. Geza Röhrig is stupendous as Ausländer, conveying huge emotion in an almost implacable face. The camera work is similar to that of Birdman, as we breathlessly head from one hellish scene to another, but there is no let-up for the lead actor here, who is in every scene. Will he manage to perform this seemingly impossible act? We spend the next hour and 47 minutes watching him try. Thus begins his quest to bury his child with a rabbinical service, a task more monumental than anything dreamed up by Greek mythologists or Dante. He carries the young body up to the autopsy room and begs the doctor there not to open up his child. He watches as the chief doctor finishes him off and then realises that the boy is his son. In the midst of this organised madness, Ausländer comes across a young boy who has miraculously survived the gas chamber.
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Despite the pace, the men have time to organise black market deals and there are more serious plans afoot as a small group plans a rebellion against the guards. Ausländer has work to do, and we are reluctantly dragged along with him. We, along with Ausländer, hear disturbing noises and glimpse horrors on all sides, but there is no time to stop and reflect.
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The camera is often placed behind his shoulder, a second pair of eyes trailing him as he performs his infernal duties, dragging and piling up the bodies, cleaning up the shit- and bloodstained chamber before readying the next group for their final journey. We follow the protagonist Ausländer Saul at Auschwitz-Birkenau: he’s a member of the Sonderkommando, the group of prisoners assigned the task of shunting victims towards the gas chambers and then clearing up the mess afterwards. Laszlo Nemes’ Son of Saul takes us into new territory, leading us a little further down into the inner circles of hell. If you thought the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps had been exhaustively covered and that you’d seen everything you needed to see, from documentaries to Schindler’s List via Sophie’s Choice, then think again.