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As this is the end of the calendar year, lists of all kinds hit the Internet and the press regarding which films were the best – and worst – this year. And unlike previous years, I came up with a list of my own, which stirred some controversy among the comments. Not the whole list though – just the inclusion of László Nemes’ Son of Saul, one of the frontrunners of next year’s Oscars.
Discarding the usual crowd of Holocaust deniers who never even saw the film, there were a few voices which were based – or at least it seems they were based – on viewing the piece; one of the commenters accused me of not daring to go against the vast majority of reviewers to highlight any flaws in the film. That comment stuck with me, and not because I want to re-evaluate my opinion on Son of Saul: it was one of the five films that made a lasting impression on me with it’s competent and highly professional execution, it’s consistent and well-thought-out narrative and Saul, the most rounded-up, credible protagonist in any Hungarian film for a very very long time. The reason why the comment kept nagging me was it deals with a very peculiar phenomenon: how audiences react to the same effect in completely opposing way. The comment found the sound overbearing and the film itself boring and predictable – as the camera never leaves the close proximity of Géza Röhrig. The rest of the complaints listed as a flaws or annoyances were part of the mise-en-scène that made Son of Saul such an immerse experience for me. And it got me thinking; have any other reviewer made any similar observations?

After some digging, I found reviews that weren’t positive; Manohla Dargis’ quick summary of Son of Saul being “intellectually repellent” and that “all the screaming, weeping condemned men, women and children [turned] into anonymous background blurs.” Adam Nayman of Reverse Shot
four reviews of the movie that weren’t positive; Slant’s Ed Gonzales the latter half of the film predictable and compared the final sequence to Elen Klimov’s Come and See (1985), stipulating that Nemes might not be the wunderkid anyone seems to think. The Skinny’s Jamie Dunn finds the “hellish chaos around him [Saul]” and the soundtrack both “coy and gratuitous” and quickly determines that the film is a story of “a corrupted man trying to find salvation by saving one symbol of innocence – another exhausted movie cliche.” along with stating that the film is monotonous. And Mark Jenkins on the NPR website thinks that another actor would have been better to play Saul to provide a better sense of Saul’s motivation as Röhring “endows Saul with only intensity and relentless motion.”. He  also states that “only straightforward account of what’s happening, delivered by the Sonderkommando to new arrivals in the opening scene, is entirely false.”

I would not like to descend into discussing the authenticity of the film – I’m not even remotely qualified to do that. But there are some common threads among the things reviewers, and the commenter took exception to: they found the entire audiovisual concept of Son of Saul either annoying or boring. Which is a surprise to me since these exact characteristics made Son of Saul an immerse and gripping film for me. It would be easy to dismiss the critical voices by simply labelling them ignorant or inattentive – since we all saw the same movie. So what is the reason behind their dissent? Reading through the reviews one thing was clear to me: all of the authors are experienced reviewers, educated, intelligent people, who watched and analysed a lot of movies. And I reckon that might be one reason for their reaction.

As it happens people from time to time ask me if I can immerse myself in a movie when I watch it despite working in the industry. Whether the magic has been killed by the fact that I’ve seen the sausage factory from the inside. And the answer is yes; there are – and I imagine will be – films which completely and utterly suspend my disbelief, more accurately; films that detaches me from my job. But sometimes it’s difficult, especially if the first ten-fifteen minutes can’t do it. And I don’t have to see three, four or even more films every day yet alone write about them. I can wholeheartedly understand that professional film critics – no matter how open-minded they are – have an even harder time not to take mental notes about things they need to write about after the screening is over. Especially if someone need to submit articles from a film festival day-after-day it can be difficult. My hunch is that the reviewers mentioned above weren’t as relaxed and/or receptive as others.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think they must reconsider their verdict – and film criticism is not an exact science anyway. What bothers me – apart from trying to understand their point of view – that in some cases because they were not that immersed in the film, they jumped to conclusions and dismissed things off-hand just to get on. Pointing out parallels with preceding films, stipulating sources of inspiration for example is an age old tradition for contextualisation; it can put the film into perspective from the theme’s point of view or works of contemporaries or direct influences of former masters. But in some reviews these similarities or allusions are treated not unlike evidence for the prosecution, as if it’s a crime to allude consciously or unconsciously to previous works – and there is a great deal of difference between allusions and clichés. Two filmmakers can reach the same conclusion without one copying the other. And sometimes the quick quip is more tempting than to really think the film through – and I should know, because I’m also guilty of trying to demonstrate my wit on works that I deemed less.

So the question is this: what are those films that You didn’t like very much but for some reason You thought You might be wrong about them…?