Director's first film becomes an early favorite for Palme d'Or
By Jill Lawless
CANNES, France (AP) --A Hungarian film that takes viewers into the hellish heart of the Holocaust has left Cannes reeling.
"Son of Saul," the first feature from director Laszlo Nemes, has become an early favorite to win the Palme d'Or and has been praised for reimagining the way the Holocaust is depicted onscreen.
It's rare for a director's first film to be chosen for Cannes' main competition, rarer still for it to be met with such an enthusiastic response.
Cinematographer Matyas Erdely said Friday the challenge for the filmmakers was "how to show things that are not possible to show."
"The genius idea of Lazlo's was that we just won't show things that cannot be shown," he told reporters. "Basically our approach was to exclude everything that is not fundamental to our story."
"Son of Saul" focuses on an Auschwitz death camp Sonderkommando — one of the Jewish prisoners forced to help dispose of the corpses of those killed in the gas chambers. The Sonderkommandos were given better food and living conditions than other inmates but were inevitably executed after a few months to prevent them from revealing the secrets they knew.
Nemes, who has worked as an assistant to Hungarian auteur Bela Tarr, focuses his film almost exclusively on Saul (Geza Rohrig), a character who undertakes a single-minded plan to offer one dead boy a proper burial. The horrors of the concentration camp are not hidden but they unfold in the background, or off to the side of the screen.
"We thought that less was more," the 38-year-old Nemes said, explaining his decision to let viewers' imaginations fill in the gaps, aided by an unforgettably evocative soundtrack. "What was important for me was to make a film about this hellish experience in a different way. … We wanted to boil everything down to the dimension of a single human being."
"Son of Saul" offers neither hope nor redemption, and many viewers found watching it a draining experience.
Rohrig — a New York-based Hungarian poet who fills almost every frame of the movie — said his biggest challenge was to play a character whose horizons and emotions have withered under brutal conditions.
"The only way to remain sane and live this type of life was to cease to be a human being, to be detached from your emotions," Rohrig said. "The challenge of the character was to dance in a very, very small area, in a very minimalist way."
“Heretic” and “Maria” Set As Red Carpet Premieres At AFI Fest
The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced that Heretic, the psychological thriller starring Hugh Grant, and Maria, based on the life of opera singer Maria Callas starring Angelina Jolie, will round out the Red Carpet Premieres section at this year’s AFI Fest. The Heretic Gala Screening will take place on Thursday, October 24, and the Maria Gala Screening will be held on Saturday, October 26. The complete Red Carpet Premieres section includes the world premieres of Music By John Williams, Robert Zemeckis’ Here, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2. All Red Carpet Premieres will take place at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre. The full lineup for AFI Fest 2024 will be unveiled on October 1.
“At the heart of AFI Fest is an unwavering dedication to celebrating the best in global cinema--together,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO. “We look forward to uniting artists and audiences once again to be inspired by the art form in a powerful sense of community.”
Heretic follows two young missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) who are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed (portrayed by Grant), becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse. The film is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and produced by Stacey Sher, Beck, Woods, Julia Glausi and Jeanette Volturno. The film will be released nationwide by A24 on November 8.
Directed by Pablo Larraín, Maria presents a tumultuous and beautiful depiction of one of the world’s most renowned artists and reimagines the legendary soprano in her final days in Paris, as Callas (Jolie)... Read More