25 Fireman's Street (István Szabó, 1973)

25 Fireman's Street

István Szabó, 1973 | 98 mins

UK premiere of the new restoration at Close-Up Cinema (London) on May 28, 2023

István Szabó's agile camera is an uninvited guest peeking into the private and collective memories of the residents of an apartment building in Budapest that is due to be demolished the next day. In a Cocteauesque quest into the inner life of a house (which also bears trace of early surrealists in its splendid and puzzling juxtapositions) some 50 years is remembered overnight. The breath-taking long takes that have the fluidity of a dream reconstruct the recent history of nation through bricks, windows, walls and wooden panels. Like Jacques Tati's PlayTime, architecture is both the starting point and what frames every movement – it's a living organ. But here the building reflects people's desires and traumas more than similar voyeuristic investigations of architecture and film as it even bears the subtitle of a "Dream About a House".

Saul fia (László Nemes, 2015)

SON OF SAUL
Director: László Nemes; Hungary, 2015
Reviewed by Kiomars Vejdani

The first shot of the film establishes its theme and style: a long take fixed on the close-up of the protagonist with stages of extermination gas chamber proceeding in the blurred background. The film is from the point of view of Saul, a Sonderkommando (a prisoner in concentration camp, carrying out the unpleasant task of helping Nazis with their extermination). In a succession of long takes all the horrifying aspects of life in concentration camp is shown with Saul nearly always at the centre of the frame. We share his experience as he carries on with his task, from seeing prisoners are undressed and moved into the gas chamber and afterwards collecting their clothes and possessions. Director László Nemes has created a nightmarish atmosphere covering every aspect of atrocities committed by the Nazis. We watch prisoners murdered (either sent to gas chamber or shot dead) and being poured into a common grave. We hear their screams and even feel the smell of rotten bodies (by seeing Saul covering his mouth with a piece of cloth).The only sign of humanity in this infernal setting is Saul's determination to give a descent burial to a young boy who briefly survived the gas chamber. Holocaust has never been watched more closely. A well deserved winner of Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival.