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Recontextualizing Son of Saul: Masculinity in Totalitarian Spaces in Hungarian Film History

Recontextualizing Son of Saul: Masculinity in Totalitarian Spaces in Hungarian Film History AbstractAs a result of its radical approach to the topic of the Holocaust, as well as due to the long list of prestigious prizes it won, Son of Saul (Saul fia, 2015, directed by László Nemes Jeles) has put the relation between Eastern European societies and totalitarianism in the centre of public and academic discourse. Though most reviews and articles placed the film in the history of Holocaust-representations, this is not the only context in which the film can be understood. In the present article I argue that Son of Saul can also be read outside (or at least at a distance from) the context of a Holocaust-film, as it also belongs to another, quite different and internationally much less known local cinematic canon. There is an unclaimed heritage behind Nemes Jeles’s controversial masterpiece, a trend in Hungarian cinema that explores the crisis of masculinity in totalitarian political regimes, thereby performing an allegorical critique of modernity and modern subjectivity. My recontextualization of Nemes Jeles’s work indicates the ways it is influenced by a local, Eastern European filmmaking tradition (which includes the work of his own father, the filmmaker András Jeles as well), and is supported by three interrelated conceptual focus points: a post-Foucauldian understanding of cultural and cinematic space, an awareness of the workings of modern cinematic allegory, and finally the use of male protagonists as prime sites for the inscription of social crisis and historical trauma. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies de Gruyter

Recontextualizing Son of Saul: Masculinity in Totalitarian Spaces in Hungarian Film History

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References (46)

Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
© 2022 György Kalmár, published by Sciendo
eISSN
2066-7779
DOI
10.2478/ausfm-2022-0005
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractAs a result of its radical approach to the topic of the Holocaust, as well as due to the long list of prestigious prizes it won, Son of Saul (Saul fia, 2015, directed by László Nemes Jeles) has put the relation between Eastern European societies and totalitarianism in the centre of public and academic discourse. Though most reviews and articles placed the film in the history of Holocaust-representations, this is not the only context in which the film can be understood. In the present article I argue that Son of Saul can also be read outside (or at least at a distance from) the context of a Holocaust-film, as it also belongs to another, quite different and internationally much less known local cinematic canon. There is an unclaimed heritage behind Nemes Jeles’s controversial masterpiece, a trend in Hungarian cinema that explores the crisis of masculinity in totalitarian political regimes, thereby performing an allegorical critique of modernity and modern subjectivity. My recontextualization of Nemes Jeles’s work indicates the ways it is influenced by a local, Eastern European filmmaking tradition (which includes the work of his own father, the filmmaker András Jeles as well), and is supported by three interrelated conceptual focus points: a post-Foucauldian understanding of cultural and cinematic space, an awareness of the workings of modern cinematic allegory, and finally the use of male protagonists as prime sites for the inscription of social crisis and historical trauma.

Journal

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies – de Gruyter

Published: Jul 1, 2022

Keywords: Son of Saul; Hungarian cinema; totalitarianism; masculinity; allegory

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