Son of Saul



Son of Saul (Saul fia) is a 2015 Hungarian historical drama film directed by László Nemes and co-written by Nemes and Clara Royer.

Saul Ausländer (Géza Röhrig) is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, a group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and forced to assist the Nazis in large-scale extermination. In October 1944, Saul witnesses the death of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkomando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to do the impossible: get a rabbi and bury the body.

The film has been praised for its intense, yet subtle take on the Holocaust, and averting the typical treatment for a film of its genre. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes, the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


 * Artistic License History: the whole film happened on an autumn. The director knew this, but he had to shoot the film in the summer.
 * Artistic License Religion: Intended. According to the director, Saul is "not a religious person, and actually makes mistakes about what it means to bury in the Jewish way. You don't need a rabbi, you need ten people saying the Kaddish, so he never gets that right."
 * Black and Gray Morality
 * Book Ends The film begins and ends with a shot of an open field behind a forest.
 * Chekhov's Gunman: Ella.
 * Concentration Camp
 * Double Entendre: An officer, says something to the effect of "Didn't take you long, huh?" We know what really happened.
 * Dramatization
 * During the War
 * Every Man Has His Price: The kapo really like jewellery.
 * Foreshadowing: Many people in Saul's group lament their imminent death.
 * A kapo gets an important order: list 70 people for "cleansing."
 * Some of the men suspect that the rabbi Saul brought with him is a fake.
 * Little Hero, Big Holocaust
 * No Pronunciation Guide: Saul pronounces his name "Shaul," unlike how most people would say the name.
 * Hope Spot: When Saul and his group
 * MacGuffin: The young corpse, Ella's powder.
 * MacGuffin Escort Mission: Saul and his "son"'s corpse.
 * MacGuffin Title
 * Meaningful Name: "Saul" is a well-known biblical name, while "Ausländer" is a Jewish name similar to the name of acclaimed Israeli historian and Third Reich expert Saul Friedländer. "Ausländer" is also a common word in the German language and means "foreigner".
 * The Oner: Many scenes in the film, but most notably the first one where Saul and his group escort Jews for transport.
 * Pinball Protagonist: Saul just wants to bury his "son", Holocaust be damned.
 * Plot Armor: Saul gets himself on dangerous situations many times.
 * Running Gag: One member of the Sonderkommandos really wants gold for himself.
 * Shout-Out: An officer comments, upon seeing the boy who survived a gassing, that he only saw one case like it, that of a girl. (This is the subject of The Grey Zone, a Holocaust film with a similar plot.)
 * One sequence recreates the secretive taking of the only photographs of the extermination process in Auschwitz-Birkenau that still exist. Saul directly influences the historical event.
 * Signature Style: Shot entirely with a 40mm lens, which creates a very shallow depth of field, and almost always focused on Saul.
 * Silence Is Golden: The film has very little music, aside from some subtle history-accurate tracks playing in the background.
 * Take That: (In-Universe) At one point, a nazi physician insults Saul by performing a Jewish dance and singing a traditional song with sarcasm, brutalizing him in the process. Other physicians are cheering along.
 * Two Lines, No Waiting: Saul attempting to bury his son, and the Sonderkommando planning their uprising.
 * Unresolved Sexual Tension: It turns out
 * When He Smiles:
 * You Have Failed Me: Downplayed. Saul, upset that a Greek rabbi won't help him bury "his son," causes an event that leads to the Greek guy's execution.
 * Silence Is Golden: The film has very little music, aside from some subtle history-accurate tracks playing in the background.
 * Take That: (In-Universe) At one point, a nazi physician insults Saul by performing a Jewish dance and singing a traditional song with sarcasm, brutalizing him in the process. Other physicians are cheering along.
 * Two Lines, No Waiting: Saul attempting to bury his son, and the Sonderkommando planning their uprising.
 * Unresolved Sexual Tension: It turns out
 * When He Smiles:
 * You Have Failed Me: Downplayed. Saul, upset that a Greek rabbi won't help him bury "his son," causes an event that leads to the Greek guy's execution.