SON OF SAUL (SAUL FIA) World Cinema

Winner of the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, this sparse yet resonant film resolutely follows one man through the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in October 1944. Isolated from the rest of the camp, Saul is a Sonderkommando, a member of a unit of prisoners forced to assist in the horrifyingly inhuman process of mass extermination. Bestowed with a sudden burning purpose after discovering the corpse of a young man he claims is his son, Saul becomes determined to give the boy a proper Jewish burial, putting the lives of his companions at risk. Infused with kinetic energy yet remarkably restrained, director László Nemes’ film displays a refreshing sense of cinematic control, eschewing exposition and sentimentality to turn this well-worn subject matter into something utterly original, shocking and relentless. A morally sophisticated, astonishing debut, one of the most talked-about films of the year has emerged as a master class in superior filmmaking and emotionally devastating storytelling technique. —Landon Zakheim