How to evaluate the Hungarian film Son of Sol?

Last year, the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film was awarded to the Hungarian film Son of Sol. The plot of this film is very simple. It can be summarized in one sentence: Sol, a task force member of Auschwitz concentration camp, found his poisoned son during his work, but he did not die immediately. Sol, who had been numb for a long time, regarded it as a miracle and decided to make one last attempt to find hope in this mortal land-to find a Jewish priest and do it for his son in a Jewish way.

Saul's Son mainly tells the story of such a narrow escape. The same is true in the second line of the film: connecting the dead task force members in series and trying to escape. The connection point between the main line and the secondary line is Sol. His task on the second line is to meet the wife of the female task force and get ammunition for resistance. But Saul's mind is on the main line, not on the secondary line. He was so intent on finding the rabbi that he even took advantage of his importance on the secondary line. In the end, he lost his ammunition in the process of looking for the rabbi, which ruined the last chance for the task force to resist and survive.

Obviously, the second-line survival is real survival, and it is real. Saul's existence, the main line, is a spiritual existence, which is empty. Is it worth destroying the real existence for the sake of empty existence? This is also the biggest controversy about the narrative logic and Sol practice of this film. But in Saul's position, he is firm, and he has never wavered in his belief in survival from beginning to end.

We can't give a final conclusion about this controversial point, but we know that it is virtual and important, even in China. Perhaps it is this emptiness that makes a person happy all his life, even if he is not in Auschwitz. This year, Liu Yulin put Father Liu Zhenyun on the big screen as the most "interesting" novel in the last decade. The story in the movie is about the patriotism of cattle. Most of the novel is actually about Yang Baishun. Yang Baishun's favorite in this life is Luo Changli, who is crying and mourning. Luo Changli's main business is growing vegetables, and mourning is only his part-time job. Yang Baishun likes the sad Luo Changli, not the Luo Changli who grows vegetables. What Yang Baishun liked all his life was the world in Luo Changli's Scream. Yang Baishun's situation is called "emptiness" among the older generation in Henan. Spiritual things in the world, whether religious or not, are basically the same. Saul, looking for a rabbi to bury his son for survival, just like Yang Baishun, only likes that cry all his life. This "emptiness" is too important to them. Otherwise, life will be boring. For Saul, even death is boring.