Son of Saul

This could be my New Year’s card for 2016, carrying all my best wishes for everyone. Why? Why be so obsessed about a film on the Shoah and the Sondercommandos? What mysterious message does it carry to the future, some future in which I want to wish well to everyone? I’ve seen this film maybe six times already, I could see it again and again, I have recorded its sound on my Iphone, and I could listen to it as music. I hope next year will bring me some answer, or simply some confirmation about the powerful connection I have to this film.

A boy coming out of the gas chamber is still breathing, Saul hears his breath and the world changes. He will protect the boy’s body, carry him around and escape Auschwitz to be able to bury this boy in the ground and and get a rabbi to say the kadish prayer. And although everything fails, this body of a dead child, the one he calls his son, is the best promise this life this life has to offer.

I also carry a dead body. The dead body of Mouchette the virtual character, is my greatest promise of life and here I salute this character Saul, my brother who teaches me that sometimes the greatest promise of life is in carrying a dead child’s body. All my gratitude goes to Lazlo Nemes, the film maker.

Read this article in the New York Times

Read this article in the Guardian

Here is a personal recording, the first 24 minutes of sound (very weak, made with the Iphone).