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com - Mar. 2016

KARAN 4U NEWSLETTER
Is Son of Saul a Jewish Movie?
Son of Saul is one of the most acclaimed films of our
time, and rightly so.
Winner of the 2016 Academy award for Best foreign
film, Son of Saul is set in the Auschwitz concentration
camp. It is based on documents, later named Scrolls of
Auschwitz, that were found buried in the camp's crematoria. The scrolls contain testimonials from Jewish
slave laborers in the camp who were known as Sonderkommandos; these were prisoners who were assigned the horrific tasks of Nazi dirty-work by shepherding people into gas chambers, then burning the
bodies and disposing of the ashes, and cleaning the
"shower rooms" for the next transport. For their services, when they were not being tortured and brutalized, the Sonderkommandos were given better rations
although they were often killed after a few months
because they were potential witnesses of the Nazi
atrocities.
Son of Saul is remarkable in so many ways, not least
of all the fact that it is the debut feature film of a Jewish Hungarian writer and director by the name of
Laszlo Nemes. It also stars a Jewish Hungarian actor
Geza Rohriq with little film experience but with the
reputation as a punk-rock-poet. Throughout the
nearly 2 hours of the movie, we are transported into
the bowels of Auschwitz and transfixed on the movements and expressions, usually blank and robotic, of
Rohriq's character Saul Auslander. We witness the
mass slaughter of the inmates but we see them as the
Sonderkommandos must have seen them in order to
survive; that it, the images are out of focus and not
uniquely human. They are just work units to be completed so that the Sonderkommandos can possibly live
for another day in hell.
One victim does stand out to Sonderkommando Saul.
Among the corpses he finds in the gas chamber is a
young boy who survived the initial effects of the zyklon gas; however, the boy is quickly suffocated by a

Nazi and designated for an autopsy. From this point

on, Saul is on a mission to provide a proper Jewish
burial for this unknown boy whom he considers his
son. He runs hither and yon, amidst his regular degrading chores, to prevent an autopsy and to find a
rabbi to say Kaddish. He is so focused on the deceased boy that he almost sabotages an escape plan
engineered by the Sonderkommandos, the leader of
whom castigates Saul for "failing the living for the
dead."

But escape he does with the shrouded corpse of the

boy in his arms and even accompanied by someone
who identified himself as a rabbi. In the end, the escape plan and Saul's mission both end in failure, although when we last set eyes on Saul he is seen smiling for the first and only time before he and the
others are gunned down by the Nazis.
Some critics, and they are few in number compared
to the many ecstatic reviewers, have charged that the
movie is a sensational, emotional experience with little insight to offer. A New York Times critic by the
name of Manohla Dargis even called the picture
"intellectually repellent." Even those who liked the

A Service of Dr. Val Karan - 558 Anderson Avenue - Cliffside Park, N.J. 07010 - (201) 943-2726 - Karan4U@aol.com -

film were frustrated by why Saul would become so fixated on the boy: had he simply gone insane? Was the
boy an" albatross of guilt"? Was Saul expressing his
latent sense of humanity?
In interviews, the director Nemes has made it clear that
his film does have a message, although a dispiriting one.
Survival and triumph are not his themes because, in
reality, that is not what he feels happened to most of
Europe's Jewry. The unadulterated truth to Nemes is
that Judaism was nearly exterminated.
Ironically, I see the film differently than the writer consciously intended. To be sure, Nemes obviously set out
to make a film about Jews; I can't remember another
Holocaust movie with so much reference to Jewish rituals: prisoners are shown reciting in Hebrew blessings
over bread, trying to observe Sabbath, respecting rabbis and seeking to recite Kaddish over the dead. There
is even a scene of Nazis performing a mock Jewish
dance with Saul. Yet while this is a film of the Jews, by
the Jews and for the Jews, I submit that Son of Saul is
not a Jewish firm. from beginning to end, I think the
film makes more sense from a Christian rather than
Jewish perspective.
Let's start with the title. I think it is no accident that the
main character is not only named Auslander (which is
German for "foreigner") but also Saul. This calls to
mind not Saul from the Old Testament who was the
first king of Israel but the Saul of Tarsus in the New
Testament. It was the latter Saul who embarked on a
foreign pilgrimage and became Saint Paul on the road
to Damascus. It was this Saul, according to the Book of
Acts, who was God's chosen instrument to proclaim
that Jesus was the Son of God.
In the film, Saul sees a young boy who was sentenced to
death but apparently survived. From a Christian point
of view, it makes perfect sense to fixate on the son who
has risen from the dead and who offers promises of redemption and salvation. In the end, Saul escapes from
the camp; but he loses the boy's corpse in a river, possibly representing baptism. Back on land, Saul briefly
spies another boyalive and in good health. It is at this
point that Saul smiles, beatifically, as if he has witnessed
a resurrection, as if he has been reborn. Just as Saul of
Tarsus rejected the rabbis and rituals of his Jewish

March 2016

past, Saul Auslander is released from the spell of

false rabbis and meaningless rituals. As one reviewer has so aptly written, "In the film's closing moments there emerges something transcendental, fleeting, and even faintly hopeful."
This belief in a savior son and a willingness to embrace and accept death runs counter to traditional
Judaism as I know and practice. True, the Nazis
were out to find the final solution to the Jewish question, to completely annihilate a race of people. Son of
Saul shows in the most graphic and riveting way how
they tried to carry this out. I wanted to shout back to
the director that, yes, it's important to remember
and even relive the tragedies and horrors of the past.
We do this every Passover when we recite the Haggadah and try to experience the bitter taste of slavery
and persecution. But we do not just dwell on the calamities.
So I would add the following postscript to the film
before the credits roll across the screen: This movie
is dedicated to the memory of the people that died in
the Holocaust and to the belief that the Jewish people
shall not perish from this earth as long as they strive
for social justice for one and all. For Jews have survived and thrived, in every generation, even after
their Egyptian, Roman, Babylonia, Persian, Russian
and, yes, their German experiences. As Mark Twain
wrote, "The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and
is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence,
no infirmities, of age, no weakening of his parts, no
slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jews; all
other forces pass, but he remains."
In effect, I have thereby just christened Son of Saul
as a Jewish film.
It's been said there are two sides to every story.
Whether one views Son of Saul from a Christian or
from a Jewish perspective or from any other religious or philosophical point of view, there's no denying that it is an extraordinary cinematic experience
and one that should be seen by every adult and teenager.