Son of Saul - Bleak, Art, Important

The sort of film I definitely would have watched in the cinema back when I was at university and hanging out at Nottingham's premier arthouse cinema every week, Son of Saul is a brutal and terrifying depiction of a few days in the life of a Sonderkomando at Auschwitz concentration camp.  As it turned out, I only got around to seeing it a few weeks ago - one of the few films of 2016 I have actually seen in 2016.  One of fewer still that I have managed to blog about.

There is little shortage of depictions of the horrors of Nazi Germany on the silver screen.  The intent of these films is more often than not a message to the post modern world to not forget the horrors that the modern one wrought upon itself.  Sadly though, only 80 years since Hitler presided over the infamous Berlin Olympics, it feels like many Europeans have forgotten how easy it is to allow peace to slip away.  As far right movements once again take hold of populist politics in France, Austria, Hungary and to a much lesser extent here in the UK, it is more important than ever to reminder ourselves where the politics of hate end up taking us.

Which is exactly what Son of Saul does.  The film follows Saul Ausländer, a Hungarian Sonderkomando who is forced to undertake the horrific work of leading people into Auschwitz's gas chambers, and then sorting their belongings and clearing out their bodies afterwards.  The story is told exclusively from Ausländer's perspective, with the camera residing either just over his shoulder or closely in his face.  In this way, the horrors of Auschwitz are presented to us via his reactions rather than directly.  His reaction (or numb lack of reaction) to what we know is going on out of shot easily as effecting as seeing any other brutal depiction of the Holocaust.  The film is about hopelessness and the pain that people can inflict on their fellows when we stop seeing people as people.  If there is a glimmer of hope in the way the film ends, then it is perhaps a nod to the idea fact that the Holocaust did, eventually, end.  The hope was for a new generation to remember, commemorate, and say 'never again'.

It's a film that's deliberately hard to watch.  But that's the point, keeping the peace and working together for the benefit of all isn't easy.  It's something we all have to work for.  Son of Saul does its part to remind us of the perils of taking the path of the scapegoat.  Please Europe - Never Again.