Son of Saul explores the Holocaust in a novel, first-person perspective, through the eyes of Saul Abraham. Saul, himself a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz, serves within the Sonderkommando, a group of young, able-bodied men who worked in the gas chambers, and as a result, earns some privileges not afforded to most of the other camp inhabitants (McCaulley). Son of Saul intricately weaves a web of themes regarding social identity and limited perspective within the scope of a social hierarchy set in place within the concentration camp. Examining the Son of Saul through the lens of power structures and conflict theory unravels the cruelty of humanity beyond the harrowing depictions of the Holocaust, and is fundamental to a film that tends to avoid …show more content…
The position of Sonderkommando is one of ambiguity; though Saul is a prisoner that will eventually meet the same fate as the others, he holds some semblance of authority and most importantly, is temporarily a member of a protected class. Throughout the film, Saul uses this protection as a means to achieving his own goal of a proper burial, often without a care for ongoing events surrounding him or the trail of destruction that he leaves behind. For example, while Saul and his buddy are ‘repairing’ the door, the Oberkapo protects them from harm, which allows them to take a couple of pictures of the camp (27:00-31:00). Saul will use any pretense to remove himself from a situation not directly benefiting his own mission. In this scene, he literally walks through the smoke, leaving behind his acquaintance, and mingles other prisoners as they are loaded into the back of a truck. He even throws out a question about the rabbi he is trying to find, though it is unclear if he is even speaking to any singular person, himself, or the audience