László Nemes has made a stunning directorial debut with his film Son of Saul, already winning the Grand Prix award at Cannes and the best foreign film at the Oscars.
Saul Ausländer, played by the 48 year old Hungarian actor Géza Röhrig, is a Jewish prisoner who has been made part of the Sonderkommando, inmates given certain privileges in return for policing the exterminations. This sets an uncomfortable twist to the usual certainty of knowing where the guilt lies. We take comfort that we know who the bad guys are but here, to survive one more day, good people do bad things.
Set in the Auschwitz death camp in 1944, there is no prelude or set up - we are dropped immediately into the centre of Hell. No hope of rescue, reprieve or release; only the here-and-now of the work shepherding the damned, cleaning the gas chambers, piling up the bodies, sorting clothes and belongings and then… repeat. The film is shocking in its monotony and repetition of process.
Son of Saul adopts an immersive perspective, focussing on Saul's face and point of view. We are caught in the middle of it; 'it' being so terrible that the realities of the routine horrors and commonplace atrocities are blurred and hazy in order to simply survive in the moment. This is a terrifying Faustian journey. The enormity of the genocide and crimes against humanity are so overwhelming that it seems indulgent to pay attention to one man, but he is our intermediary.
There is little music or score to soften the emotional blows, instead there is a background of propaganda, barked orders and a brutal soundscape which only heightens what is visually peripheral.
Saul is a simple man is driven to find a Rabbi to say Kadesh and bury his child whom is found amongst the bodies. Even if his deeds seem senseless to everyone around him, it makes sense to him. Röhrig gives an utterly mesmerising performance and the final image of his face is extraordinary.
Be warned this is a movie that will stay with you long after you have left the cinema.