In 1999 Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Foreign Minister and a member of the Green Party with strong pacifist roots, used the phrase “Never Again Auschwitz” to support German military intervention during the Kosovo crisis. In 2005, at the main ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the Red Army for “liberating Europe” (an assertion that obviously did not resonate positively among Poles). In the summer of 2014 Turkish President Recep Erdoğan slammed Israel for betraying the memory of the Holocaust by “acting like Nazis” during the operation against Hamas in Gaza. At the same time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the Holocaust to warn the world of a nuclear Iran.
Archive: Jan 2016
Son of Saul is a film about a member of the Sonderkommando (Jewish prisoners forced to aid in the killing process and clean up) at Auschwitz. What sets Son of Saul apart from most films that deal with the Holocaust is that it is not presented in a traditional narrative structure. Hungarian director László Nemes upon accepting his Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film said “over the years the Holocaust has become an abstract. It deserves a face.” Certainly he does this immediately as the camera never leaves Saul; we are either looking directly at his face in close-up or over his shoulder. We experience events with Saul as he goes about his work and later his self-imposed mission, the burial of a boy. The movie is a visceral experience — there is very little dialogue, and we only see and hear what Saul sees and hears. Nemes gives us very little to go on, we know nothing about Saul’s past, who he once was, prior to landing in Auschwitz. Saul is introduced to us as he emerges from a combination of mist, smoke and sound. We are immersed in a world that is out of focus and filled with a cacophony of sounds, some so sharp and real one turns to look for the offending speaker in the audience. Nemes and his sound designer Tamas Zanyi, recorded over eight different languages speaking dialogue to create aural chaos, these layers of sound combined with the close-ups and long takes are intended to disorientate, forming a psychological experience with Saul. Nemes does not use any sentiment or melodramatic devices to tell his story. We never form an emotional bond with Saul as one might to other characters in other films on the Holocaust.
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I began working with CHGS just over a year ago, a newbie to Holocaust and genocide studies. It was an intense start, landing right into the fray of final preparations and coordination of the Bearing Witness event. As you may recall, this event fell on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day last year, and was an exhibition of portraits of and recorded interviews with MN Holocaust survivors, followed by discussion with the artist, Felix de la Concha, and talk by Auschwitz survivor, Dora Zaidenweber. Following close on the heels of Bearing Witness, just a few days later, was the panel eventorganized in response to what were then the very recent attacks in Paris at the offices of Charlie Hebdo.
Son of Saul is a film about a member of the Sonderkommando (Jewish prisoners forced to aid in the killing process and clean up) at Auschwitz. What sets Son of Saul apart from most films that deal with the Holocaust is that it is not presented in a traditional narrative structure. Hungarian director László Nemes upon accepting his Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film said “over the years the Holocaust has become an abstract. It deserves a face.” Certainly he does this immediately as the camera never leaves Saul; we are either looking directly at his face in close-up or over his shoulder. We experience events with Saul as he goes about his work and later his self-imposed mission, the burial of a boy. The movie is a visceral experience — there is very little dialogue, and we only see and hear what Saul sees and hears. Nemes gives us very little to go on, we know nothing about Saul’s past, who he once was, prior to landing in Auschwitz. Saul is introduced to us as he emerges from a combination of mist, smoke and sound. We are immersed in a world that is out of focus and filled with a cacophony of sounds, some so sharp and real one turns to look for the offending speaker in the audience. Nemes and his sound designer Tamas Zanyi, recorded over eight different languages speaking dialogue to create aural chaos, these layers of sound combined with the close-ups and long takes are intended to disorientate, forming a psychological experience with Saul. Nemes does not use any sentiment or melodramatic devices to tell his story. We never form an emotional bond with Saul as one might to other characters in other films on the Holocaust.
more...
I began working with CHGS just over a year ago, a newbie to Holocaust and genocide studies. It was an intense start, landing right into the fray of final preparations and coordination of the Bearing Witness event. As you may recall, this event fell on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day last year, and was an exhibition of portraits of and recorded interviews with MN Holocaust survivors, followed by discussion with the artist, Felix de la Concha, and talk by Auschwitz survivor, Dora Zaidenweber. Following close on the heels of Bearing Witness, just a few days later, was the panel eventorganized in response to what were then the very recent attacks in Paris at the offices of Charlie Hebdo.