Son of Saul (2015) on Netflix
Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian prisoner in a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz. After a gassing he finds a boy he believes is his son, and looks for a rabbi to bury him.
- Watch on NetflixThis title is not on Netflix right now. Please check back later for updates.
- Watch on NordVPN
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.4/1054,868 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
A Jewish-Hungarian concentration camp prisoner sets out to give a child he mistook for his son a proper burial.
—Noah Orent
Two days in the life of Saul Auslander, Hungarian prisoner working as a member of the Sonderkommando at one of the Auschwitz Crematoriums who, to bury the corpse of a boy he takes for his son, tries to carry out his impossible deed: salvage the body and find a rabbi to bury it. While the Sonderkommando is to be liquidated at any moment, Saul turns away of the living and their plans of rebellion to save the remains of a son he never took care of when he was still alive.
—LaoKoon
WWII. Hungarian-Jewish Saul Ausländer is a prisoner at Auschwitz. He, along with several other men, are housed in a different part of the camp, as they are all given the work of knowingly corralling the other prisoners into the gas chambers, the prisoners who believe they are taking a shower and given food before they start work. Saul and these men's work also entails disinfecting the gas chamber after use, going through the personal possessions of the dead looking for any items of value, and disposing of the ashes after the bodies are burned. It is after one of those gassings that Saul sees the body of who he believes is his illegitimate son. Out of circumstance, the Germans want to conduct an autopsy on the body.
Cast
- Balázs Farkasas Saul's Son
- Gergö Farkasas Saul's Son
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Son of Saul (2015)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Son of Saul was the ninth Hungarian film nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and the first since István Szabó's Hanussen in 1988; it was the second Hungarian winner after Szabó's Mephisto in 1981, and the first Hungarian film to take the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
- Director László Nemes insisted on casting actors who spoke their characters' own languages, and gave the lead to New York City-based Hungarian poet Géza Röhrig, who had not acted in a film since the 1980s and had first been considered for a supporting role.
- Nemes's feature debut struggled to find backers: after potential co-production partners in France, Israel, Germany and Austria turned it down, the film, originally planned as a French production with a French protagonist, was made entirely in Hungary on a €1.5 million budget.
- The filmmakers turned down the 65th Berlin International Film Festival after it offered only a Panorama slot rather than a main-competition place, aiming for Cannes instead, where the film premiered in competition on 15 May 2015 and won the Grand Prix.
- Son of Saul was shot on 35 mm film with a 40 mm lens and the Academy aspect ratio of 1.375:1, chosen to give the film shallow focus and a portrait-like narrow field of vision.
- Son of Saul took five months of sound design, with human voices in eight languages recorded and attached to the original recording of the production.
