him as he is
I don't want to talk about Son of Saul as a holocaust film. Not just because the director and star have been quoted in articles about how it isn't your usual holocaust film. They talk about the content. The content is good, sure. But, I'm more interested in the style, the format. In the same year that Tarantino, explicitly, and Inarritu, implicitly, (just to take two examples) are promoting filming out in the great wide open, with Son of Saul director Lazlo Nemes quite deliberately frames everything as small. We are forced by a narrow aspect ratio and a camera that never ventures far from our protagonist (until the end of the film, as it follows a child then leaves us alone in the woods). We look on the world of Son of Saul . From just behind or next to Saul Auslander (Geza Rohrig). When we look away, it is Saul's POV we take. If it isn't obvious, this positions us in the audience firmly into the situation with Saul. There are no wide shots, no establishing shots...