Movie Poster

You failed the living for the dead.

We are dead already.

# Review

The story follows Saul (Géza Röhrig), a Jewish-Hungarian prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp as he tries to perform a Jewish funeral for the body of his son.

The film is dark and features many realistic portrayals of the soul-crushing conditions inside concentration camps. There really is no story arc but the momentum of Saul’s drive keeps the film moving. The film really explores the banality of evil, of how systematically Jews were oppressed and killed within the concentration camp.

I really enjoyed Röhrig’s portrayal of a traumatized man who stoically detaches himself from reality but my favourite aspect of the film, however, is the film’s bleak and hectic cinematography. If I could describe this film with one word it’d be “claustrophobic”. The camera closely follows Saul throughout the entire film and the technique works very well in this film increating a perpetual sense of unease and distress.

The film can be interpreted as a man who desperately clings to his faith or as a man who desperately clings to his son. Neither theme really applies to me. My father, however, when he watched the film, was very touched by Saul’s devotion to who Saul viewed as his son. Perhaps I will rewatch this film once I’m a father to get a different perspective.

# Conclusion

A dark film about a father in the Holocaust.

# Overall rating: 7.5

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