Where the Sonderkommandos were located, they were separated, they were quarantined and not allowed to sleep with the other inmates, so we wanted to get right into the heart of the matter and this center of the hell and to see and to show the full extent of the demonism that the Nazis set into motion by forcing Jews to burn Jews. The camp was was divided into two regions. Nobody is smart enough to understand where was God and all these huge questions all we can do is to take you there, to the here and the now of 1944 October, and to take you to the most troubled zone of the camps. The condition of any sort of healing is to admit it and to confront it for what it is and not to sugarcoat it, not to “Disney-fy” it and not to make it into a “Hollywood something.” That was our goal: To make a visceral, experiential movie that doesn’t try to interpret. It’s bad enough the Holocaust happened, but if it happened, then let’s learn from it. We understand, of course, the human instinct to move on from this dark moment of history, but the truth is unpleasant at times and we were just not ready to make that compromise and sacrifice, so to speak. No one was allowed to survive, so we’re not being fair and serving justice for the dead if we keep telling these narratives about how x, y or z made it through. Every single survival was due to a systematic error.
Why are all these movies concentrating only on the lucky third? There should be movies that are done about the overwhelming majority. These movies mostly are focusing on the survivor and/or the rescuer, while the historical truth is that two out of three Jews were murdered in the Holocaust in Europe. I would assume there are at least a thousand or more documentary and films done about this subject, and yet the cinematographer, László and I, when we sat down first together, we just shared this sense of frustration and even disappointment with the genre, which by and large I would simply label as unsuccessful if we’re talking about witnessing and, importantly, testifying for the Holocaust. The chaos in this film is more than palpable, it burns through the screen. No one has ever experienced a representation like this. Not to take away from the importance of other films that have remembered this time in history, but one thing that becomes very clear after watching “Son of Saul” is that past Holocaust films have played it alarmingly safe and accessible. Throughout the discussion, it became abundantly clear just how essential of a role “Son of Saul” plays and will continue to play in remembering the Holocaust. Sitting down with Indiewire earlier this fall to discuss “Son of Saul,” Röhrig spoke openly about the film’s intentions to course-correct cinema’s representation of the Holocaust. He takes his time to respond to questions and to collect his thoughts, giving answers as powerful as the film itself.
Saul doesn’t say much over the course of the film, but Röhrig is a force of internal reckoning. In person, he’s just as quiet and emotionally reflective. Despite the inevitable tragedy he faces, Saul remains bound to this singular task above all, remaining as stoic as possible as the world around him falls into chaos. Given Nemes’ claustrophobic blocking, the entiriety of “Son of Saul” and its brute emotional impact falls on the face of Röhrig, and what an impassioned, weary and revelatory face it is. When he comes across the body of a boy he takes for his son, Saul embarks on a mission to bury the child, all while a growing prisoner rebellion takes shape in the periphery. Röhrig plays Saul Ausländer, a Hungarian-Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz who works as a Sonderkommando member, burning the dead and cleaning the gas chambers.