#laszlo nemes

[soon-palestine]

Son of Saul showed how the Holocaust’s horrors required inmates to hollow out their humanity. The horrors of Gaza have made a moral monster of its director, Laszlo Nemes: Laszlo Nemes, the Hungarian director of the award-winning Holocaust film Son of Saul, joins the elite mob determined to lynch film-maker Jonathan Glazer for trying to publicly prick Hollywood's conscience at the Oscars ceremony last week and end its deafening silence in the midst of a plausible genocide in Gaza.

Nemes' statement is a fascinating insight into the emotional and ideological contortions of the traumatised Zionist mind, incapable – given its particularist, zero-sum worldview – of acknowledging the endless suffering of the Palestinian people.

Instead, it constantly seeks to deflect from its responsibility for that pain by demonising those who stand in solidarity with Palestinians or even those who can no longer, in good faith, stand by as 2.3 million people are being bombed and starved to death.

Nemes’ statement, published sympathetically by establishment media outlets, turns the world on its head in accepting the gravest atrocities in living memory only because they are being committed by Israel – a militarised, settler colonial state that claims to represent Jews around the world and was founded, with western backing, on the ruins of the Palestinian people’s homeland.

A state that has been ethnically cleansing Palestinians for eight decades and is now declared by the international human rights community to be an apartheid state. A state that the World Court has ruled is committing a plausible genocide, and is known to have killed and maimed many tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and created famine conditions for some 2 million more.

All of this, according to Nemes, is evidence not that Israel has turned out to be a classic example of the abused turning abuser but of a continuing global plot supposedly against the Jewish people, one that threatens their existence more so even than the Nazi Holocaust. It is, says Nemes, Zionist Jews like himself who are the true victims of Israel’s killing spree in Gaza – not the Palestinians being turned skeletal by a famine induced by the state Nemes identifies with, or the Palestinian bodies blown apart by bombs dropped by the state Nemes says represents him. It is, Nemes claims, Israel and the Zionist Jews who excuse its every action who are friendless, isolated, vulnerable, even as the United States – the world’s global hegemon – provides a constant flow of bombs to Israel and untold billions in financial aid, and even as Washington and Europe freeze funding to UNRWA, the only United Nations body capable of keeping the famine in Gaza at bay. All of that is irrelevant to Nemes’ traumatised, sick mind. He demands Glazer and others of conscience stay silent – stop “moralising” – and let Israel finish the job of erasing Gaza.

A job it has been carrying out incrementally for decades with the support of the same western establishments that originally gave away what was not theirs to give away – the homeland of the Palestinian people – to a Zionist movement that had promised to colonise Palestine on the West's behalf. With zero self-awareness, Nemes tells Glazer to instead worry about the "sorry state of cinema" and "the destruction of creative and artistic freedom by corporate mindset".

Yet in the same breath, he dismisses as antisemitism the call to stop bombing children in the pursuit of corporate profits by the arms industry, and the demand for Washington to stop backing a genocide by its most useful client state in controlling the oil-rich Middle East. Calls for an end to occupation, calls for the imposition of a ceasefire, remind Nemes of "12th-century archbishops, in an ecstatic state of self-righteousness, self-flagellation, denouncing vice, longing for purity".

According to Nemes, abhorrence at babies and children being actively starved to death is nothing more than a medieval “longing for purity”. Glazer, in calling for Israel to stop hijacking the voice of Jews by claiming to speak for them all and shielding itself from criticism by weaponising the Holocaust, is supposedly regurgitating "talking points disseminated by propaganda meant to eradicate, at the end, all Jewish presence from the Earth".

In Nemes's twisted mind, Glazer's call for an end to Israel's belligerent occupation and 17-year siege of Gaza, and the oceans of Palestinian and Israeli blood spilt to sustain it, is simple propaganda that leads to the extermination of all Jews.

Is it not Nemes who sounds like some terrifying throwback to the Dark Ages, not Glazer? Nemes ends with a warning as divorced from reality as the rest of his screed. We are, he says, “reaching pre-Holocaust levels of anti-Jewish hatred”, in what he describes bafflingly as a “trendy, ‘progressive’ way”.

So presumably in Nemes’ mind, the threat of antisemitism is not posed by the far-right racists stalking the corridors of power, like Donald Trump or Hungary’s own Viktor Orban, or the white nationalists who see Israel as a model for their own ethnic supremacist nationalism that will demand Jews be exiled from the West to a Jewish ghetto in the Middle East.

No, Nemes is worried about those “progressives” who want equality for Palestinians and Jews, who want an end to Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians.

Son of Saul showed a Jewish inmate of Auschwitz who gained marginal privileges over other inmates by turning himself into a hollow, morally empty creature ignoring the horrors all around.

There could be no clearer metaphor for the moral monster the genocide in Gaza has made of Laszlo Nemes. This article, Traumatised Zionist mindset exposed by new Hollywood attack on Glazer for Oscar speech, can be read and shared, with supporting links, here

[opheliaintherushes]

Finally, someone decided to give Laszlo Nemes money to make more movies, it's insane that it's taken this long.

[harrison-abbott]

The filmmakers made sure that the camera never went beyond Saul’s sentient perspective. Everything we see in the film is from his own field of sight, sound or physical proximity.

The movie drew from five month’s worth of sound recordings from eight different languages. These were then attached to the original recording of the cut.

Director Laszlo Nemes originally wanted to make it as a French film with a French main character. But it was turned down by producers in France, Israel and Germany because it was deemed too threatening. He found the solution in Hungary.

It was shot entirely with a 40mm lens to portray a sense of claustrophobia.

[chinchillasorchildren]

Laszlo Nemes…

[lady-boring]

Atardecer de Laszlo Nemes (2018)

[rahjyblog]

Son of Saul [Saul Fia] (HUNGARY, László Nemes, 2015)

[cristalconnors]

BEST FILMS OF 2019: #20-11

20. Climax, dir. Gaspar Noé

A dizzyingly immersive vision with an intoxicatingly playful spirit, easily feeling like Noe’s most joyous, carefree effort, boldly casting conventions aside to instead play by its own rules. 

19. The Cave, dir. Feras Fayyad

A riveting act of bearing witness that centers the contributions of women in the medical response to the unfathomable crisis continually unfolding in Syria, paying as close attention to the horrors as to the fleeting moments of levity and respite. Fearless and vital.

18. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, dir. Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers 

A quiet stunner, deftly tackling the thorny ramifications of domestic abuse and the experience of indigenous women with a slyly cinematic eye. Forget 1917, THIS is the one shot spectacle of the year. Subtly bold and richly textured.

17. Sunset, dir. László Nemes

A stunning, propulsive vision of the Austro-Hungarian empire on the verge of collapse that swallows you whole, thrusting us and our protagonist into a deceptively high-octane, hostile world that disorients and thrills. 

16. Sorry Angel, dir. Christophe Honoré

As complicated and messy as first love, Honore’s inspired, personal tale of star-crossed gay would-be lovers in early 1990’s Paris is refreshingly untethered from narrative convention, bound only to a hard-earned authenticity of feeling that is palpable throughout. Equal parts charming and affecting.

15. Transit, dir. Christian Petzold

WWII Nazi drama as riveting contemporary social allegory, dabbling in melodrama while muddying the line between past and present to staggering effect. Demands to be poured over countless times.

14. For Sama, dir. Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts

A devastatingly immersive account of the unspeakable atrocities being committed against the Syrian people that should shake any viewer out of complacency, where death and devastation bombard you, but you are also constantly shown the light of empathy, compassion and love. Breathtaking and heartbreaking in equal measure.

13. Hustlers, dir. Lorene Scafaria

An electric and vast study of agency and community amongst working class women grappling with a sexist, capitalist system that’s discarded them, training its eye as much on the glitz as on the grit. A ravishing delight.

12. An Elephant Sitting Still, dir. Hu Bo

A deep dive into widespread despondency in post-industrial revolution China, which it casts as a bleakly gray, open-air prison of sorts, crushing its viewer under the weight of its gargantuan running time, but is never short on empathy for its central quartet of Hu Bo stand-ins. Devastating in every sense of the word.

11. Parasite, dir. Bong Joon-ho

A capitalist nightmare where the daily indignities of poverty compound on themselves, ruthlessly pitting the working class against itself in narratively dazzling ways while remaining a rollicking good time at the movies, despite its decidedly heavy, bleak themes. 

[cinemavariety]

80+ Great Dramatic Films (unranked):

Son of Saul (2015) Dir. László Nemes

[engelhexe]

על ידי שבעת כוכבי הלכת כביכול בכלים, כל הכוחות מפוזרים לאדם ממעיין הטוב העליון:

מאת סטורן התבוננות נשגבת והבנה מעמיקה, יציבות השיפוט, השערות נחרצות, יציבות ורזולוציה בלתי ניתנת לביצוע:

מאת יופיטר, זהירות לא מעורערת, מזג, טוב לב, אדיקות, צניעות, צדק, אמונה, חסד, דת, שוויון, חנינה, תמלוגים;

מאת מאדים, האמת; לא להיות מבועת, אומץ וחוזק תמידי, רצון נלהב של איבה, כוח המשחק והתרגול ונחישות מוחשית בלתי ניתנת להמרה.

על ידי השמש, אצולת הנפש, נקודת המבט של הדמיון, אופי הידע והדעה, בגרות, עצה, התלהבות, אור הצדק, התבונה והשיקול המבדילים בין זכות לטועה, מנקים אור מחושכת הבורות, תהילת האמת שנמצאה החוצה, וחסד מלכת כל המידות הטובות:

מאת ונוס, אהבה נלהבת, תקווה מתוקה ביותר, תנועת התשוקה, הסדר, המוחלט, היופי, המתיקות, הרצון להגדיל ולהפיץ אותה בעצמי;

על ידי מרקורי אמונה ונוקבת נוקבת, הנמקה ברורה, מרץ הפרשנות וההיגוי, כוח המשיכה, חריפות השכל, שיח התבונה, ותנועות המהירות של החושים:

על ידי הירח, עיצור שלום, פיות, כוח הדור וההתגברות, הגדלה וירידה, ומצב רוח בינוני, ואמונה הידיעה בדברים גלויים וסתומים מניבה כיוון לכל; גם תנועה לעיבוד האדמה לאורח החיים ולהענקת צמיחה לעצמה ואחרים.

- היינריך אגריפס, "שלושה ספרי פילוסופיה תורת הנסתר", ספר ג

[olvaheiner]

Sunset (2018) 

[kansassire]

Me ha gustado bastante más que El Hijo De Saul, a pesar de lo confusa que resulta por momentos, y sin embargo, es maravilloso ver el discurrir de la vida, de una época, justo a través de la nuca de Irisz. Sería una pelicula estupenda para verla en miniciclo junto La Infancia De Un Lider de Brady Corbet y El Gatopardo de Visconti... justo la época entre lo viejo y lo nuevo: caos y horror.

Napszállta (Sunset), 2018, Laszlo Nemes

[opheliaintherushes]

It’s kismet that I’m in the middle of reading The Castle and Joseph Roth’s The Tale of the 1002nd Night when I finally got the chance to watch Sunset - its feverish but hypersane Kafkaesque logic and premonitions of the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire owes a great deal to both authors, but Laszlo Nemes stands on his own, and the fact that everyone slept on this at Oscar time was daylight robbery.

[pristina-nomine]

My favourite movie posters of 2018 (in no particular order).

[cilicodr-art]

Movie-log 

019. Napszállta / Sunset

László Nemes -- 2018 | Hungary | 7

[chinchillasorchildren]

Best Director

Winner: Claire Denis (High Life)

The Nominees

Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) Mati Diop (Atlantics) Greta Gerwig (Little Women) Laszlo Nemes (Sunset) Christian Petzold (Transit) Celine Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) Martin Scorsese (The Irishman)