Review of Son of Saul (2015) by Janneke K — 09 Jan 2016

To be honest I don't understand why 'Son of Saul' gets such high praise. It may be a more realistic portrayal of Auschwitz than 'Schindler's List', but I do find there are a lot of elements in 'Son of Saul' that can hardly be realistic (and I'm not talking about the ending, which isn't meant to be realistic). For one thing, Saul doesn't seem to be working very hard; much of the time he is staring or otherwise preoccupied. Yet he somehow manages to survive. Also, scrubbing the floors of the gas chambers whilst the bodies are still heaped there doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or does it?

What is good about Son of Saul is that it is yet another portrayal of Auschwitz, and any portrayal of the holocaust that isn't a sensational one is good because it leaves another impression on our minds; we need reminding every so often. Yet, although the portrayal may not be sensational, the storyline is, and needn't have been. As viewers, we learn that Saul is on a mission: he wants to save his presumed son from the flames and give him a Jewish burial. In my opinion there are too many coincidences in the story: 1) Saul happens to find his presumed son 2) his son is still alive when he finds him 3) he manages to hide him inconspicuously enough 4) he finds his rabbi (although admittedly, this takes a while) 5) everything seems to happen at just the right instant. These are the ones I remember, but there were a lot more that bothered me.

I much prefer Imre Kertesz' portrayal of Auschwitz in his book 'Fatelesness', in which a 14-year-old boy lands in Auschwitz. The book is an account of his experience of Auschwitz as something new; initially, he really believes he will be put to work and receive wages; then gradually we see him adapt to the new 'normal' that Auschwitz becomes to him. We really see it through his eyes, and in a way, there isn't much of a storyline. He just gets deported, then gets moved back and forth from one camp to another, somehow manages to survive and returns to Budapest. No adventures there. I haven't seen film version yet but think I will appreciate that a lot more than the unlikely plot of 'Son of Saul'. But then Imre Kertesz was a holocaust survivor himself whereas Laszlo Nemes is only 38.

But then, most of us (thank heavens) haven't witnessed the horrors of Auschwitz. So in that sense, any portrayal of it is like an impressionistic painting; to help us form an image of what it was like. I guess we should just try to look at it from as many angles as possible to get some sort of idea at all.