Monday, August 29, 2016

Son of Saul

Photo credit: www.salon.com

Son of Saul I have heard great things about this film but holocaust is terrifying subject and for some reason I'm not really that into East European stuff (architecture, films, novels etc.) They end up being really grim and stay with me for a long time (Lilya 4 Ever for instance).

This film was horrifying. A true horror film that is even more terrifying since you know that the most terrible things you see in the film actually happened.

I think what differs this film from the rest of its ilk is that we watch everything from either over the back of the main character Saul or from his point of view. He works as a special worker at a holocaust camp. His job is to work at the killing rooms. Not turning the chemicals on or anything but do the menial jobs, such as separating the clothes, carrying the bodies out, digging pits for them to be thrown in when the cremation room is full etc. While he is about his tasks he comes across a survivor from the chemical showers, a young teen who is breathing and despite being distressed, seems like he is going to live. However when the doctor examines him, he suffocates the kid. Saul wants him to be buried in traditional Jewish way and tries to accomplish this during the film. Meanwhile he goes about (with his concentration camp inmates) his daily business and everything is at the back ground. It felt so hard to deal with the evil of human beings. This is the true horror people are capable of and I suppose the real danger is being used to it. The people in the camp are probably acting this way to survive but one gets the feeling that one or two somehow accepted these horrors as the facts of life around them as usual occurrences. But how much it takes for a person to stop feeling the horror? Or do they ever.

This is a very good film but one I'll not want to watch again. 

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