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| Terezin, Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia) |
I had the chance to see Son of Saul in the theaters but I wasn't ready; I have to be in the right frame of mind to watch or read anything on the Holocaust. Son of Saul tells its story from the vantage point of Saul, a member of the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz (Sonderkommando were work units made up of prisoners who scrubbed the floors of the gas chambers, removed bodies, looked for jewelry or any gold on the bodies, etc.). When we first see Saul, he is a shell of a man, numb to the horrors that surround him, until a young boy is pulled from the shower and is still, somehow, breathing. The medical personnel is ordered to kill the boy and then perform an autopsy to see how he managed to survive. Saul sees the boy and recognizes him as his son, and even though he was unable to protect him while he was alive, he becomes fixated on finding a rabbi to perform a proper Jewish burial. There is a rabbi in Saul's group, but he wants to say kaddish later, but Saul is determined to this the right way, although he does not freely share the reason for his focus. Like all quests, he must accomplish other tasks along the way, including trying to get gun powder from the women's camp, helping to take secret pictures of life in the camp. Eventually Saul believes he has found a rabbi, but the man was an imposter. Saul takes the body of the boy to try and give him a burial, but time and other events conspire against him. The movie is filmed at a frenetic pace, there are no leisurely walks across the camp, everyone is scurrying about, everything is done in a hurry; the guards, Nazi and Kapos, yell, push and harass the prisoners, those who about to die and those who dare to live. There is a cacophony of languages: German, Polish, Hungarian, Russian and Yiddish, unlike other films, especially English language films, everyone does not necessarily understand everyone else, beatings occurred because the prisoners may not speak German. The viewpoint of the film struck me - we saw most of the film from Saul's perspective, as if the cameraman was right behind him. To me it made it very claustrophobic, few wide angle shots or shots that panned around, we saw it from Saul's perspective. It was a very intense film, and told the story of a group of men that is rarely shown and hard to watch. The director and writer cast no judgement on the Sonderkommandos or on Saul, either judging their daily tasks or that they do them; or judging Saul and his actions trying to do something for his son in death that he couldn't do in life. I am loathe to say I loved a film like this, because how do you really say you love a movie or book about the Holocaust? I have seen three of the foreign films so far, and I really don't know how I would have voted, because they have been very good. Son of Saul was very good and then some, and I think that Geza Rohrig should have been more widely considered for Best Actor for his performance. This is a movie you may not want to see, but you should see it.
5/30/16 Mustang, nominated Best Foreign Film, 2016
Mustang was a French-Turkish nominee, and is set in the countryside in Turkey in the current era, although as I watched it, I often felt like I was back in the 1800s. Mustang is the story of five sisters who have lived with their grandmother and uncle for around ten years since their parents died. Lale is the youngest and we see most of the story form her point of view. She is the most independent of the five. The girls are mischievous and fun-loving and don't like feeling fenced in by their conservative family, especially their uncle. The girls and their friends leave school for the summer and head to the beach where they play in the water and sit on the boys' shoulders. Unfortunately for them, a neighbor sees them, and thinking that they are behaving immorally, she reports them to their grandmother. The three oldest are beaten, and the restrictions on their freedom begins. The walls are built up, making it harder for the girls to leave undetected. Grandmother decides it is time to marry the girls off, and begins to arrange visits by prospective husbands. The eldest daughter, Sonay, defies her grandmother and tells her she will only marry the boy she loves; so the potential husband is deferred to Selma, the second oldest. To say this was not a love match would be insulting, but Selma doesn't fight the inevitability of the match. We get a glimpse of something untoward happening, but nothing is said, but it becomes evident that Grandmother may be in a hurry to marry off her granddaughters to protect them. Ece, the third daughter is next in line for marriage. She does not want the marriage and she does not want to be with her uncle any longer, but is not sure how to get out of it. She does find a way however. Throughout, the girls manage to escape their compound, but every time they do, their uncle puts more bars on the windows and doors. On one of her successful trips out, Lale asks Yasin, a friendly truck driver, to teach her how to drive. Lale and her sister, Nur, are the only ones left, and grandmother is not done with her matchmaking, telling Nur that she is next, and on the night of Nur's wedding, the girls turn things about, using the fact that the house is now a fortress to their advantage, keeping everyone else out, while they escape. They head to Istanbul where Lale's former teacher now lives. So far, none of the three foreign films nominated is a 'fun' movie, and I know people like to watch fun movies, but they are all very good, as I mentioned above. This was a very well done film, the five young women who played sisters really looked like sisters and acted liked sisters, they acted like girls from anywhere in the world. Sadly, the story of girls being treated as less than, and being restricted from having fun because it might be 'impure' are found in the news a lot these days. The movie is probably not as raw as it could have been, but it certainly conveys feelings and emotions of being held captive and being treated as chattel, but also a certain hopefulness and spirit in Lale, who is still young enough to believe that she can do anything. We see the Grandmother between a rock and hard place; a woman who loves granddaughters dearly, and perhaps has high hopes for them to have more freedom and education than she did growing up, but also knowing she is beholden to her son with whom they live. She wants to protect them, but is limited in her options. I thought this was a beautiful film, with a great score, in a beautiful country and a heartbreaking story.
