ThiefHott Too much of everything

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

proud_luddite Two days are chronicled in the life of Saul Auslander (Geza Rohrig), a Hungarian Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz in 1944.Saul is a Sonderkommando member of the concentration camp. His own life is temporarily spared and he gets better benefits than other prisoners but he and his fellow Sonderkommandos must do some of the worst work that the Nazis don't want to do. (I'm being deliberately vague to avoid spoilers.) Early in the film, Saul personally takes on a mission that involves a religious ritual and the search for a rabbi.The uniqueness of the directing style by Laszlo Nemes is highly praiseworthy. The camera is either on Saul in close-up or following behind him as the viewer sees what he sees while the background is out of focus. The atrocities seen in the background would have been the main dramatic focus of other films. Here, the viewer is taken to see that the horror is treated as a day-to-day work routine with much activity happening as the prisoners must be visibly busy to avoid the wrath of their slave-drivers. Thus, the casualness magnifies the horror.Rohrig also deserves praise for being in every scene and mostly in close-up at that. He does a fine job in conveying Saul's intensely desperate life while surrounded by insanity.There is much to admire about "Son of Saul" but it becomes difficult to understand why Saul is so relentless in his pursuit of his goal even though he jeopardizes himself and his fellow prisoners. Even if there was the slightest comment or hint to get closer to his motives, this could have made a good film into a great one. Some explanations include the possibility of insanity. While this may be true, the ambiguity becomes more frustrating than fascinating.It is easy to compare "Son of Saul" to other related Holocaust films that reach a higher mark:"Phoenix ", a German film also released in 2014;"Fateless", another Hungarian Holocaust drama that was released in 2005;"Kapo", an Italian film released in 1960. Like "Son of Saul", this film took on the difficult subject of concentration camp prisoners who turn against their own in order to alleviate their own personal circumstances. It dug deeply into the pain of conscience in such harrowing circumstances.

pkwsbw-1 Barely a plot, barely any dialogue, claustrophobia inducing hand held camera closeups through most of the film; clearly the director is doing this intentionally, but it just doesn't work. The moral plight of the Sonderkommandos (concentration camp inmates forced to do the Holocaust's dirtiest work) was covered much better in The Grey Zone. This film lacked for me the tension, and even the horror, by trying too hard to be intimate. I confess I didn't even make it to the end.

motoraton2889 This is the first time i write a review, but because this movie is so bad, i really believe in the Oscar hype, but oh my...The Plot is total nonsense, no character develop, no proper dialogue, total frenzy shots, i know is a death camp and the camera moves with the flow of the situation, but, the main character is so cold, like an iceberg, i mean they're already death from been there but he just can't let go the corpse of a child, he clings so much for it that it start to be really annoying. I don't recommend anybody to see this movie, is just a pretentious film, time that will not go back in your life, if you wanna see a really good film about concentration camps, go see The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but not this, i really mean it.

krocheav It's not easy to write a critique for a movie of this type – on one hand, it's a brave attempt to portray the almost unbelievable of horrors that were perpetuated by a regime - claiming to be superior in all the arts - putting themselves above any other race - a race setting themselves up to be the most powerful nation on earth. Perhaps, it was this very pomposity that assured them of an ultimate fall from grace (as with the Romans). This movie however, is approached in such a claustrophobic photographic manner - with a tendency to imitate Kubrick. As with Kubrick's insistence on having overlong stylistic shots, where a camera would endlessly follow behind his subject in an attempt to pad out scenes with limited content. This technique when overused ultimately stretches the interest to snapping point. When will new movie makers stop imitating and form their own style - does everyone have to be the new Kubrick? The same technique eventually killed Kubrick's later works as he lost focus on his stories (that got weaker) to concentrate on their superficial 'style'.Hungarian writer/director Laszlo Nemes, has a penchant for horror and certainly crammed much of this into his nightmarish vision of life as an inmate, working in a Nazi death camp - hideously forced to witness and assist with the repugnant gassing murders of his own people. Maybe it would have been far more effective had he just got on with telling his shocking story in a time frame that held the audience's attention. As is, 'Saul' leaves the viewer exhausted, wanting to fast forward to a resolve and escape the unrelenting photographic style. Much of the story is good but treated in an inhibiting way, making it a questionable award winner - with 1hr 47mins being far too long for the restrictive treatment of its subject. Low budget movie makers use this hand-held camera technique because it's cheap but there's still a lot to be said for some involving conventional sweep!