I don't think the boy at the end, or the boy Saul was trying to bury were his actual son. I think the boy Saul was attempting to bury might have been a representation of his son, who possibly was killed before this film ever took place. I was admittedly a little bit lost with this film, but from the beginning I felt like Saul was looking for something, but nothing was really too clear.
I think something clicked in him that saw the burial of the boy as a way to somehow redeem a part of himself, in a way he possibly felt he had failed his actual son. I obviously could be wrong.
I think the boy at the end is simply a representation of life. The young boy is free and alive out in the wild, and with a chance, although slim as it may have been at that time, to be free. I think Saul saw that as a sign from God and finally felt a shred of peace seeing that boy.
The thing that confused me was the soldiers at the end. The one soldier took the boy and held his mouth shut, then let him go and he ran off and we hear gun shots. Were the men in the barn found and killed. Was the a German boy? He had blonde hair if I remember correct.
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straydog12
8 years ago
To me, the boy he desperately tries to bury is the projection of his inner self. One piece of humanity that left in him. Basically he is a dead-man walking. He marches people to the gas chamber to be kill, he cleans the corpse, his morals and values are destroy. At least by burying the boy, he can express the last bit of humanity that is left in him. By burying the boy, he saves himself. As the burial also symbolize his own burial.
The last scene when he smiles. I think he kinda has a delusion about the dead boy's soul comes and say thank you or goodbye to him. (Of course, the boy is real.)
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