Debut film 38-year-old (at the time of filming) Hungarian Laszlo Nemes' son Saul, "filmed by as much as eight languages ??(Hungarian, Yiddish, German, Russian, Polish, French, Greek and Slovak) was a priori, before its first showing at the last Cannes festival accepted as a masterpiece. Already because the director has worked (although only two years) as an assistant to the classics of world cinema Bela Tarr, recently announced his retirement from the profession. As a result, the Coen brothers, who headed the Cannes jury, gave the film the second most important prize - the Grand Prix. And then the film and won the "Oscar" for best foreign picture in 2015-th. He won knowingly. What is it about? On the work of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz in 1944. In the film, if I am not mistaken, there is no exact dates. But the question, if the events of the film relate to historical facts about the two days of the beginning of October. Since childhood, stuck in the memory of that Sonderkommando - is particularly barbaric SS divisions, destroys the partisans and civilians who carried out sweeps in the occupied territories. Among them were units consisting exclusively of former prisoners and prisoners of various nationalities. Sonderkommando Auschwitz also comprised of prisoners. They had more rights, more food than the rest. But they, too, are gradually executed. According to available information, the 2,200 members of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando survived a little over a hundred people. First, they chose not to keep the workplace more than four months - this time in many psychological disruptions began. Secondly, some of them, not withstanding, committed suicide. Because the work was you know what? Take the next echelon of Jews brought to Auschwitz. Accompany them in the locker room, where the attendant assured the Germans into a megaphone as if waiting for all souls, and distribute arrived after him by occupation and went to work with earnings as the German labor hand needed. Then drive them naked for thick doors, behind which is not a shower, and a gas chamber (after all, the Nazis were not just murderers, sadists, and idiots, because Germany is really experiencing shortage of workers at the end of the war - why were all put to death?). At the same time employees of the Sonderkommando, the same Jews were required to keep the shutter speed so as not to disturb the newcomers to death, not to give them to guess that they will die, not to cause mass hysteria. Next it was required to plug their ears to not hear locked in a cell, finally realizing that they are being killed, shouting and pounding on closed doors. Then clean the gas space from the corpses and sewage, preparing it for a new group of suicide. Then check out their mouths, pulling gold teeth, and left in the "waiting room" clothes in search of money and expensive stones. Then drag the corpses to the oven and throw human ashes in the river. Whole-nothing. One day there is an emergency situation. The teenager manages to survive in the gas chamber, although it is clear that his minutes are numbered. The German officer kills his prick, now the concentration camp doctor, a prisoner should reveal the body to find out why the gas did not work. But intervenes taciturn middle-aged man on the back of his jacket is painted on the cross - sign of the Sonderkommando. It takes a teenager for his son. When a friend tells him that no son, he is not and never has been, he says, if it's a secret son born out of wedlock. As a result, the man, the protagonist, for whom the camera follows relentlessly, at the risk of life steals and hides the boy's body to keep him and try to burn as it should be buried. For this you need a rabbi - he is looking for a rabbi in other teams, at which time he moved, although it may execute for it, looking for death among novodostavlennyh. He runs the risk of not only themselves, but also their friends, because zonderkomade preparing to revolt (his people from the camp chancellery told that the Sonderkommando was about to be destroyed) and the hero of the film in the preparation of the uprising its function. But he was not to revolt. He must bury her son. What is so good about it? It is appropriate to reformulate the question: What's the big deal? Firstly, the chosen style. The entire film is built on close-ups and focuses on the main character. We see either his face (his reaction to what is happening) or profile (when he does something) or neck (in these moments we all see through his eyes). At the same time the background is blurred, so we unavailable camp horrors, though it is clear that now, for example, members of the Sonderkommando dragged naked corpses. Oddly enough, the nightmarish truth of the film will only amplified because our imagination dorisovyvaet terrible scene. And if the horror was filed naturalistically, then I'm afraid the audience would see the truth - staging, theatricality. As a result, the film Laszlo Nemes stylistically echoes the painting of Alexander Mindadze "Dear Hans, Dear Peter". In both films - almost all built on close-ups. In both - many undeciphered, unsaid (although Nemes less). In both - a lot of the German language, although Nemes is mostly command-pogonyalki: schnell, arbeiten etc. Secondly, fidelity to historical truth. In recent years, many enthusiastic "The Kindly Ones" by Jonathan Littell, terrible and thoroughly historically novel about the Eastern Front, the German sick minds of the Second World War and the terrible details of the Holocaust. But now it turns out that in the case of the Hungarian Holocaust Littell was not quite right. Yes, Hungary did not hand over their Jews in Germany longer than any of the Allied States of Hitler. And surrendered only at the end of 1944, and, according to Littell, Hungarian Jews in Germany is needed as labor, but almost all perished on the way, as they marched in the cold to Germany on foot and in cars without roofs. But in reality, all Hungarian Jews were sent to overseas, not necessarily the German concentration camp, the same Polish Auschwitz in the summer. And then he began to destroy, not caring, contrary Littell, of any working hands. Perhaps the discrepancies in Littell due to the fact that his main character to the end of 1944 finally goes the roof, and his chronicle of events simply can not be trusted. And here at Nemes everything exactly - even if we talk about the revolt of the Sonderkommando. Such a revolt, of course, ended in defeat, actually occurred at Auschwitz on October 7. Third, the meaning of the film is also special.

Why does the main character is so eager to bury the son of a human being, and his comrades, even knowing that it's hardly his son, and the situation with the funeral able to attract the German guards and destroy the forthcoming uprising, are sympathetic to the hero? Because the question of the survival of the nation. And it is important for the survival of how to fight, and to keep the tradition. Remember my name. There are times when taking care of the dead is more important than saving sentient. RESPONSE TO THE FILM WORLD AND DOMESTIC PRESS. Contradictory. From over-enthusiastic to "nothing special".

Original article: Trust only the dead: Film Week - "Son of Saul '.