Son of Saul

Plot:

Son of Saul is set in the Auschwitz Birekenau concentration camp in 1944 as is based on the struggles of Saul Auslander a Hungarian Jewish prisoner working for the sonderkommando and tasked with collecting valuables from the bodies of gassed prisoners.

Saul witnesses a young boy survive the gas chamber, only to be suffocated by a Nazi physician.

Saul then goes on a self imposed mission to give the boy a proper Jewish funeral.

Review:

This film has a relatively minimalistic dialogue and no narration. It instead relies on building an atmosphere of sadness and misery by using close up camera work and the never ending sound of the machine that is Auschwitz Birekenau chugging away in the background along with the continuous chatter and heckling from the SS guards and sonderkommando.

Son of Saul is a brutally realistic interpretation of life within the boundary of the Auschwitz Birekenau concentration camp and is an impressive and harrowing film with an extremely minimalistic production with no unnecessary romance or gore.

I score Son of Saul 3 SS commanders out of 5