Son of Saul (2015)

19 Tuesday Apr 2016

Tags

Auschwitz, Burial, Concentration camp, Drama, Géza Röhrig, Hungary, Kaddish, Kapo, László Nemes, Review, Sonderkommando, World War II

Original title: Saul fia

D: László Nemes / 107m

Cast: Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnár, Urs Rechn, Todd Charmont, Jerzy Walczak, Sándor Zsótér, Marcin Czarnik, Levente Orbán, Kamil Dobrowolski, Uwe Lauer, Christian Harting

Having claimed a number of awards, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, since its debut at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Son of Saul has also been extremely well received by critics and was in many Top 10 lists at the end of last year. Through its central character of Saul Ausländer (Röhrig), we’re introduced to the Sonderkommandos, concentration camp work units that were usually comprised of Jews, and whose job it was to assist in the disposal of the people (and their belongings) who had been killed in the gas chambers. A Sonderkommando was never given a choice about their role, and though they had slightly better living conditions than the rest of the camp inmates, it was inevitable that they would be “retired” after three or four months of working.

Against this backdrop, and the events that took place at Auschwitz in October 1944, first-time writer/director László Nemes has fashioned a grim, harrowing, and remarkable movie debut that acknowledges the horrors of the Holocaust while also allowing for rare moments of peace and beauty and hope amidst all the despair of life in a concentration camp. How Nemes does this is perhaps the most impressive aspect of the movie, as the camera – formidably handled by DoP Mátyás Erdély – sticks close to the character of Saul and rarely strays further than a foot away from his head or shoulders. When it does, though, and the larger picture of life in the camp is revealed, it has an impact that Nemes quite carefully cultivates for maximum effect.

With the camera being so close to Saul, Nemes also distances the background by keeping it out of focus, a decision that fits with the world as Saul sees it. There will be viewers who will find this approach annoying, and perhaps less dramatic than if the wider “world” around Saul had been revealed in all its ugly wretchedness. But this would be to miss the point of Saul’s involvement with the rest of the camp. Even before he discovers the boy who survives the gas chamber – and then only to be summarily suffocated by a Nazi doctor – and takes him to be his son, Saul has chosen to survive in the camp by cutting himself off from everyone else, and only interacting with others when he needs to. So the movie’s visual design, where events happen around Saul and without his direct involvement, are kept fuzzy and indistinct, and where Saul has chosen to keep them.

To mitigate against this distancing effect, however, Nemes has also made the movie’s sound design an integral part of the drama, as through the various sounds and noises of the camp, and those made by the inmates and the guards, the things that Saul chooses to ignore are made vividly obvious and given a chilling reality that offsets the visual composition. As the continual blurring of background images occurs so too does the sharpness of dialogue and sound effects, perhaps most effectively realised in the sequence where, with one of the gas chambers not ready to be used, the latest arrivals are taken out to the nearby woods and stripped and shot. It’s an incredible sequence, shot in a cinéma vérité style that reinforces the horrible expediency that cost so many people their lives.

Away from the visual and aural decisions that make the movie look and sound like no other Holocaust movie before it, Saul’s story is a simple one: he wants to give the boy he believes to be his son a proper burial, and the attendant service given by a rabbi (Saul is not a practising religious man; as a result he doesn’t realise that a rabbi isn’t necessary for what he wants to do). Saul becomes obsessed with making his plan happen, but it proves harder to achieve than he thought. He’s unable to find a rabbi who will perform the ceremony, and his efforts to find one are constantly interrupted or foiled by the demands of some of the other Sonderkommandos. They’re planning an uprising, and want Saul to help them. His attempts to please them and also satisfy his own needs form the basis of the narrative, but Nemes makes it clear that Saul’s need to bury the boy is his first priority.

Again, some viewers may have an issue with the single-mindedness that Saul adopts here, as he jeopardises both his own life and those of his fellow Sonderkommandos as he seeks out a rabbi. His determination is such that he acts recklessly, and seemingly without regard for his own safety or the safety of others. An attempt to photograph some of the atrocities carried out at the camp is nearly discovered thanks to Saul’s unthinking behaviour, and later, when he finds someone he believes to be a rabbi (Charmont), Saul nearly ends up being mistaken for a new arrival (and killed). And when circumstances dictate that the uprising needs to happen sooner than planned, Saul’s only concern is ensuring that the boy’s body is kept safe enough to be buried still. But it’s this dogged refusal to give up that enables Saul to keep going, it’s his way of retaining some humanity in the face of the wanton cruelty he sees each and every day.

As Saul, Röhrig gives an incredible, melancholy performance that is built on telling expressions and a minimal amount of dialogue. Saul is a man consumed by reticence and detachment, focused on whatever he himself is doing at any given moment, and Röhrig, whose only previous acting experience was in a Hungarian TV show in 1989, shows the character’s distance from his surroundings as both a blessing and a curse. It’s a finely nuanced and controlled performance, intelligent and surprisingly emotive, and his ability to display a variety of emotions through the mask-like appearance Saul adopts in the camp is a masterclass in screen acting.

In addressing the issue of the Sonderkommandos and their place in the concentration camps, Nemes is also giving a voice to the people who didn’t survive the camps. It’s a fine distinction to make when so many other Holocaust movies celebrate the survivors over the ones who met their fates in a gas chamber. It makes the movie a bleaker experience than most, and its haunting, distressing tone is all the more forceful and compelling because of it. Son of Saul may not be a comfortable movie to watch, and it may not be rewarding in the traditional sense, but it is a testament to the tenacity and the courage of those who found themselves in one of the worst predicaments ever: that of aiding in the deaths of millions of people like themselves.

Rating: 9/10 – expertly handled, and refusing to indulge in any kind of melodrama, Son of Saul is one of the finest Holocaust movies ever made; intense, horrible (and horrifying), disturbing, and brilliant, there are moments that will linger in the memory, but in shining a light on a rarely discussed aspect of “life” in the camps, the movie earns its place in cinema history as an important historical record.

The Human Resources Manager (2010)

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

A Woman in Jerusalem, Burial, Drama, Eran Riklis, Guri Alfi, Immigrant, Industrial bakery, Israel, Literary adaptation, Mark Ivanir, Noah Silver, Review, Romania, The Weasel, Yulia Petracke

D: Eran Riklis / 99m

Cast: Mark Ivanir, Guri Alfi, Noah Silver, Rosina Kambus, Julian Negulesco, Bogdan E. Stanoevitch, Irina Petrescu, Gila Almagor, Reymonde Amsallem, Roni Karen, Papil Panduru

When an employee at a prestigious bakery in Jerusalem is killed, and her body goes unclaimed for some weeks, it leads to a public relations crisis for the company. With a newspaper article being prepared that will criticise the bakery, its owner, known as the Widow (Almagor), gives the job of defusing the matter to the human resources manager (Ivanir). He discovers that the employee was a Romanian immigrant called Yulia who had been living in Jerusalem for some time, but whose family is back in her home country. He also learns that she had been let go a month before by her supervisor, and believes that this absolves the bakery of any blame for her body going unclaimed.

However, the journalist writing the article, known as the Weasel (Alfi), publishes the article anyway. And instead of fighting any claim of negligence, the Widow decides to admit blame and pay compensation to the family; she also gives the job of escorting the body back to Romania and representing the company at the funeral to the HR manager. With his home life proving difficult to negotiate – he’s divorced and has a young daughter (Karen) he doesn’t spend enough time with – the prospect of being away for a few days isn’t ideal, but he doesn’t have a choice.

At the Widow’s request, the Weasel goes with him, which adds to his problems. And once he gets to Romania, the HR manager finds that bureaucracy and local customs place further obstacles in the way of arranging the funeral. First, Yulia’s ex-husband (Stanoevitch) can’t sign the burial form because he’s no longer family. A search for their son (Silver) reveals a wild child at odds with everyone, but who is too young to sign the form either. This leaves his grandmother (Petrescu), but she lives in a remote village that is a couple of days’ journey away. Borrowing the van used by the Israeli consul (Kambus), the HR Manager, accompanied by the Weasel, the Vice Consul (Negulesco), the son, and a driver (Panduru), make their way to the grandmother’s village. But the onset of a storm forces them to take shelter in a military barracks, where both the van breaks down, and the HR manager becomes ill…

A downbeat, yet curiously, almost accidentally uplifting adaptation of A.B. Yehoshua’s novel A Woman in Jerusalem, The Human Resources Manager is a strange beast, part black comedy, part tortuous road trip, and part voyage of discovery. These elements, fused together as they are here, work in ways that often come as a surprise, and it makes for rewarding viewing, as the HR manager finds a new lease of life from taking care of the dead.

As the HR manager learns to loosen up and out his own troubles behind him – a previous posting that went horribly wrong, his divorce, the Widow’s lack of confidence in him – he also learns how to deal with the problems of others, particularly the son, whom he eventually bonds with. It’s all done gradually and with a great deal of sympathy and warmth toward the character of the HR manager, and avoids any grand emotional gestures, preferring to keep things on an even level and without a great deal of show. This approach doesn’t undermine the characters’ experiences on their travels, but serves to keep matters realistic, and is remarkably naturalistic as well.

The movie has its quirks. No one is called by name, only by description: the son, the Vice Consul, the grandmother etc., and it makes for an everyman feel. The only person who has a name is the dead woman, Yulia. And while this may point to some notion of the movie playing with stereotypes, such is not the case. Yes, it makes for a kind of shorthand when characters are introduced, but the absence of names never becomes an issue. The same is true of Romania, obviously the country the HR manager travels to, but never named in the movie. It adds to the idea that this is a story that could happen to anyone, anywhere.

In the title role, Ivanir is a great choice, his stoic features and resigned looks fitting the character perfectly. His early frustration at being given such a job is played with just the right degree of self-absorption and rancour. As the movie develops and the HR manager becomes more involved with Yulia’s family, Ivanir portrays his new-found determination and purpose with credibility and a refreshing lack of artifice. By letting go of his life back in Israel, or at least the things he believes are important to him, and by learning that he tries to exercise too much control, he frees himself from the yoke he’s placed around his own neck. It’s an impressive, consistent performance that anchors the movie and gives the viewer someone to connect with (and root for).

The supporting characters are all fleshed out to good effect, with Silver as the angry, petulant, aggressive son, and Kambus as the waspish Consul standing out from the crowd. There’s often stunning location photography courtesy of DoP Rainer Klausmann, and the movie is edited with precision by Tova Asher. In the director’s chair, Riklis organises and orchestrates the script by Noah Stollman in such a way that each scene adds something more to the story, and enriches it as a whole. He’s also good at bringing out the less obvious emotions in a scene and rendering them accordingly, letting the story unfold in a way that keeps the viewer guessing what’s going to happen next. It all adds up to a movie that is as poignant as it is efficiently dramatic.

Rating: 8/10 – with a terrific central performance by Ivanir, The Human Resources Manager takes its time and tells its story with honesty and subdued passion; not as morbid as it may seem, this carries a warmth and a heart that makes it a lot more enjoyable than you’d imagine.