MovieChat Forums > Saul fia (2015) Discussion > Pro-religious or anti-religious message?

Pro-religious or anti-religious message?

posted 9 years ago by vasilis_g84
8 replies | jump to latest

Do you believe religion is treated in a positive or a negative way by the creators of this movie?

This is the IMDB description: ''In the horror of 1944 Auschwitz, a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his own people finds moral survival upon trying to salvage from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son.''

In order to do that he is getting obsessed with finding a rabbi so that he can bury the dead boy. On the way to achieve it he gets someone killed, but most importantly he destroys an organized Jewish sabotage against their guardians.

I'm all in on perceiving this movie as judgemental and ironic against the religious beliefs of afterlife and hope, that hold some people back from making good use of their one and only life, but I don't think that's the case (even though the director is not himself religious).

One could say that it doesn't matter, because the point of the movie is a desperate man's struggle to maintain his humanity by finding a superior, noble cause. If this is the case I find it rather unrealistic, irrational and stupid, and the movie's point unsuccesful, making me retrospectively tottaly uninterested in this person's story. The reason? He could have actually fought for the noble, moral cause of NOT DESTROYING HIS JEW FELLOWS' PLAN FOR SURVIVAL...

I understood and appreciated the artistically accurate recreation of Auschwitz's terror and humiliation, so the mood was 100% there. I even got engaged in the story and the characters (at first) and admired the interesting directing and cinematography, so, the technical aspects were great too. However, the whole religious obsession was a dealbreaker for me for the above reasons...

What do you think?

[–] throwntosafety 9 years ago

It's not a story about religion in reality but a story of a desperate man in a desperate situation, trapped in a complete nightmare, who loses his mind by the death of his son. He wants to give his son a real burial and not have him go into the oven - that is admirable and understandable. Saul was uneducated about his religion - he did not really need a rabbi for the burial to say the prayers. If he not been a man broken by his situation, he would have understood this better when it was explained to him. The real truth though is he was not destroyed by his religion at all, he was destroyed by the Nazi atrocities and man's cruelty to man.

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[–] MoviemanCin 9 years ago

Amen, aturner.

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.

[–] vasilis_g84 9 years ago

I know the movie is not (entirely) about religion, I even wrote that myself: the point of the movie is a desperate man's struggle to maintain his humanity by finding a superior, noble cause. However the religion and the Nazi atrocities were the given context. So, since the Nazi cruelties are (if not universally at least personally) condemnable and I wouldn't care about a debate on this topic, I thought of hearing some thoughts about an aspect of the film I found stupid.

The dead boy was never confirmed to be his son. On the contrary, according to the facts, he probably wasn't.

Thanks for your response.

[–] annex47 9 years ago

Of course the boy wasn't his son, can't believe anyone who watched the film thinks there is any ambiguity here....

[–] at7000 9 years ago

Please answer truthfully- Are you some 'garden variety' moron?

Let's run a little experiment, shall we? We'll kill 90% of your family. Then...Put you in Auschwitz and make you a sonderkommando where your job is leading helpless, men, woman and children to their deaths via gas chamber all day and then carting the bodies off to crematorium ovens. Then you also find out, your job is a "temporay job" and after three months you yourself will also be gassed and killed. And then let's see if you are thinking 100% rationally at that point.

You are the reason I hate humans.

[–] vasilis_g84 9 years ago

I'm sorry that a thoughtfull and provoking film like that (eventhough flawed) was an opportunity for you to express your anger for the humanity and your ignorance on filmmaking by attacking strangers on IMDB. Obviously, I have no interest for a conversation with you since you don't have either basic social skills or understanding of art.

[–] at7000 9 years ago

Those were all beautiful, self-congratulatory, sentiments. However, you failed to address my point- Would anyone in Saul's position have been thinking in logical, rational terms? With perfect decision making skills. If you dare to answer yes to that question, you are one demented individual.

The film is not without flaws, but the lack of rational, decision making skills, by the main character, is not one of them.

[–] 9 years ago

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