It is set in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, and follows a day-and-a-half in the life of Saul Ausländer (played by Géza Röhrig), a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando.
Among the dead after a gassing, Saul sees a still living boy suffocated by a Nazi doctor who calls for an autopsy.
Saul carries the body to Miklós Nyiszli, a fellow Hungarian prisoner and a forced assistant to Josef Mengele, and asks him to not cut up the boy so that he can receive a proper Jewish burial.
Biederman first wants to photograph the camp's horrors using a camera collected from the dead, and smuggle the pictures outside to attract attention and help.
He pretends to fix the lock of a shack, while a fellow prisoner hides inside and takes pictures of a cremation in a fire pit.
Biederman discloses the information to Abraham, who instructs Saul to head to the women's camp and pick up a package of gunpowder from a prisoner named Ella.
After collecting the package, Saul looks for a rabbi among a line of newly arrived Hungarian Jews, who are being led into the woods for execution.
Hearing the guards approaching, Saul tries to carry the body across the river, but loses his grasp and is pulled out of the water by Rabbi Frankel as the corpse floats away.
[2][15] The writers spent several years on research, while historians such as Gideon Greif, Philippe Mesnard and Zoltán Vági provided support for the film.
[16] New York City-based Hungarian poet Géza Röhrig, who had not acted in film since the 1980s, was cast as the main character, Saul, after being considered originally for a supporting role.
[2][14][19] A 40 mm lens and the Academy aspect ratio of 1.375:1 were adopted to realise shallow focus and a portrait-like narrow field of vision.
[20][21] Architect and liberal activist László Rajk, who also worked on the permanent Hungarian exhibition at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, designed the re-creation of the crematoria.
The site's critical consensus reads, "Grimly intense yet thoroughly rewarding, Son of Saul offers an unforgettable viewing experience – and establishes director László Nemes as a talent to watch".
[27] Indiewire's Eric Kohn awarded the film an A− rating, calling it "a remarkable refashioning of the Holocaust drama that reignites the setting with extraordinary immediacy".
[28] In his review written for The Hollywood Reporter, Boyd van Hoeij praised the cinematography and the soundwork of the film.
He writes: "Shot (and shown in Cannes) on 35mm, often in sickly greens and yellows and with deep shadows, Erdely's cinematography is one of the film's major assets, but it wouldn't be half as effective without the soundwork, which plays a major role in suggesting what is happening around Saul, with audiences often forced to rely on the sound to imagine the whole, horrible picture".
[...] "Son of Saul sees humanity in effort, identity in action; it watches someone with nothing, a man reduced to a statistic, get a piece of himself back, mostly by finding some meaning in a place of meaningless evil".