A JEW FINDS SALVATION IN SON OF SAUL
Director László Nemes has gone so far to the depths of the Nazi deathcamps that filmviewers are advised not to eat before sitting in their chairs before the screen. Otherwise, they may vomit as they view Jews entering a gas chamber, having their dead bodies removed, scrubbing down of gas chambers to be ready for the next batch, placing the bodies into ovens, shoveling of ashes into trucks, and shoveling of ashes from trucks into a body of water. Or as they hear wild sounds to accompany the action, including loud mechanical sounds, Nazis telling lies, issuing insults, and giving orders, and other undefinable and unwelcome sound effects. Saul Ausländer (played by Géza Röhrig) is one of 70 ablebodied Jews assigned to the task before they are all to be liquidated later and replaced by another group. After one teenage boy survives a gas chamber death, Saul becomes obsessed with the need to provide a proper Jewish burial, so he seeks out a rabbi and a place to dig, referring to the boy as his “son.” He joins a group that escapes into the woods (filming is in Budapest), and they find a hut to rest temporarily. But then for the first time Saul smiles because he sees a boy of about the same age and appearance who has been sent as a scout by the Nazis to locate the whereabouts of those who have escaped. From the expression on his face, Saul seems to believe that his “son” has been resurrected. But the ending of a film about Nazis is rarely destined to be a happy one. The Political Film Society nominated Son of Saul as best film on human rights of 2015. MH
AFERIM! REMINDS EUROPEANS THAT GYPSIES WERE ONCE SLAVES
Directed by Radu Jude, Aferim! takes filmviewers back to the days of 1825 Wallachia (in Romania), not out of nostalgia but to portray how chaotic life was and how the Romanian people coped in the countryside amid the ever-present possibility of war with Russia and gypsies treated as slaves by feudal land barons known as boyars, the Ottoman rulers. What carries the narrative is that the local boyar, Iordache Cîndescu (played by Alexandru Dabiju), has assigned Constable Constandin (Teador Corban) to retrieve escaped slave Carfin Pandolean (Toma Cuzin) who had sex with his libertinistic wife, Smaranda (Luminita Gheorghiu). The manhunt by horseback involves a picture of the agricultural life of the country, including a festival and an inn with entertainment of all sorts. What is most fascinating is that Constable Constandin is so poetic in his interactions, especially while teaching his son Ionita (Mihai Comanoiu) how to be tough and worldly-wise with a liberal dose of profanity. The title of the film is a Turkish word meaning “Bravo!” that Romanians have incorporated into their language despite their hatred of the Ottomans. There are many laugh lines, especially the ethnic stereotypes glibly shared by a priest along the road (Alexandru Bindea), so the film is best viewed by a group that is a little tipsy. For those surprised that slavery of gypsies was then taken for granted, the fact is that slavery was legal for 500 years until abolished in Romania during 1856. Romania as a state emerged in 1859 from the merger of the principalities of Moldova and Wallachia but was first called “Romania” in 1866 and only became independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. The full history is even more complex. MH