Son of Saul Page #7

The ordinary prisoners are pushed against Saul. One of them

searches in his pocket and finds a piece of apple. He takes a

bite right away. Saul stands still.

THIN PRISONER +

(in Yiddish, whispers)

Medication?

SONDERKOMMANDO PRISONER II +

(defiant, in Yiddish) +

We’re dying too.

The guards try to separate the groups. +

Saul keeps looking at the man who took his apple.

The guards finally succeed in separating the two groups. They +

keep hitting violently the ordinary prisoners. +

As his group departs, it is hard for Saul to see who is safe +

and who is beaten to death.

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34.

In the distance, smoke rises among the trees. +

CUT TO:

17 EXT. KREMATORIUM - ROAD FROM THE FOREST / KREMATORIUM GATES /

COURTYARD - DUSK

Saul proceeds on the road among Mietek’s kommando behind the

trucks.

They are marching toward the crematorium. +

Biederman is standing in front of the krematorium gates. He

spots Saul.

BIEDERMAN:

(in German, to the guards)

This one is my Krema. I’ll take

him.

Biederman and Saul go inside the courtyard of the

krematorium.

The appel is about to start. +

Mietek’s group proceeds on the dusty road. +

Biederman leaves Saul as he approaches the members of his

Sonderkommando gathering in the courtyard.

IN THE COURTYARD +

Saul spots Abraham and goes next to him.

Abraham, looking tired, looks at Saul in an inquiring way. +

ABRAHAM:

(in Hungarian)

What happened?

+

+

+

Abraham looks at Saul. +

The call begins. +

ABRAHAM (CONT’D)

(in Hungarian, stunned)

You found the Greek?

+

+

+

Saul shakes his head. +

Numbers are shouted, the prisoners answer. +

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35.

Abraham, looks up at Saul in a harsh way.

CUT TO:

+

18 INT. KREMATORIUM - UNDERGROUND STAIRS / GROUND FLOOR CORRIDOR

/ BACK OF THE OVENS / MEDICAL STORAGE ROOM - NIGHT

The prisoners walk up the stairs in the krematorium. Abraham

walks next to Saul.

The men proceed further on the ground floor. In the doorway

leading to the entrance of the ovens, Saul suddenly turns

back.

+

ABRAHAM:

(in Hungarian)

Where are you going?

SAUL:

(in Hungarian)

Something to do.

ABRAHAM:

(in Hungarian)

I’m going with you.

SAUL:

(in Hungarian)

No need. I’ll be right back.

The prisoners of the Sonderkommando advance between the two

men. Abraham gazes at Saul , but quickly disappears in the

doorway.

Saul hurries to the autopsy room. He keeps a low profile

while he passes the night shift kommando, relentlessly

working.

CUT TO:

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19 INT. KREMATORIUM - AUTOPSY ROOM / MEDICAL STORAGE ROOM -

NIGHT:

He stops in front of a closed door, knocks on it. No answer.

He waits there for a few seconds, before turning the knob.

The door is locked.

+

+

+

He turns, toward another door behind him. He slightly pushes

the knob, peeping through the little opening thus created.

IN THE STORAGE ROOM

+

+

+

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36.

The narrow room inside is empty. On the walls, shelves can be +

seen. He looks around, enters the room and closes the door +

behind. +

The room has another door. Saul opens it.Saul enters the +

autopsy room. +

He looks through the benches on the side and the operating +

table, all empty.

Saul’s face becomes extremely tense. +

German voices can he heard, filtered by the main door.

The lights are turned on from outside. +

When the door is suddenly opened, Saul is petrified, in the

middle of the room. The CHIEF DOCTOR rushes in. His eyes are +

cold and wears an immaculate white gown. He is accompanied by +

several other DOCTORS, including the SS doctor and several SS

OFFICERS. A few battered-faced Jewish doctors can be seen in

the background. Among them, Miklos.

Saul seems incapable of moving, and the chief SS doctor now

faces him. Saul looks down. He takes off his hat. +

CHIEF SS DOCTOR:

(in German)

What is the purpose of your

business? +

Saul stretches out his hand, toward a broom that stands in a +

corner.

He steps back and shows in awkward pantomime-like gestures

that he is sweeping the floor.

SAUL:

(in German)

Sweep.

The chief doctor raises his eyebrows. The SS officers burst

out laughing. One of them, an AIDE-DE-CAMP, starts imitating

Saul. He seems drunk.

AIDE DE CAMP +

Oy-Oy-Oy!

The aide de camp lifts up a leg, and now the other. He +

invites Saul to follow suit. +

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37.

SS OFFICER 3

(in German)

A real shtetl dance, like in the

good old days! +

Saul starts imitating the SS, to whom the Jewish dance seems

more familiar than to Saul.

The audience is well entertained. The officers and the SS

doctors laugh. The Jewish doctors look away.

The Chief doctor, less amused, snaps his fingers.

CHIEF SS DOCTOR:

(in German, calmly)

Out!!

Saul, trying to show no emotions, goes back to the corridor,

closes the door behind him.

CUT TO:

20 INT. KREMATORIUM - GROUND CORRIDOR / UNDERGROUND STAIRS /

UNDERGROUND STORAGE AREA / TUNNEL / LIFT / OVENS - NIGHT

Saul goes to the stairs down to the tunnel. On his way he

passes a NIGHT KAPO and a NIGHT FOREMAN. +

SAUL:

(in broken German)

The pieces. Autopsy room. Where?

+

+

NIGHT KAPO:

(in German)

You’re day shift. Get lost.

+

SAUL:

(in Hungarian)

The doctor promised me...

NIGHT FOREMAN:

(in German)

What?

+

Saul does not answer and leaves the two men.

He runs down the stairs to the underground level, looks under

the stairs. Upon finding nothing, he hurries into a storage

area in front of the stairs and increasingly ecstatic, looks

among the tools and clothes of the Sonderkommando, but to no

avail.

+

In the tunnel, his comrades are loading bodies into the lift.

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38.

He arrives in front of the lift. Like a lunatic, he looks

through the corpses.

A fellow prisoner, a powerful MAN working beside him grabs

Saul’s shirt and pushes him back.

LARGE PRISONER:

(in Yiddish, menacing)

You want to go up with them?

The platform of the lift moves upward. +

Saul jumps onto the platform. He keeps looking amid the

corpses.

IN THE OVEN AREA +

The platform rises onto the next floor. In the background,

many PRISONERS of the Sonderkommando, some not even wearing

shirts, work around large metallic openings behind which

large flames can be seen. Bodies are burning. +

The prisoners are carrying corpses from the platform to the

ovens.

+

+

Saul exits the platform, he passes by the ovens. +

Saul stops. He stares, as if hypnotized, at something OFF

SCREEN. He is watching the bodies OFF SCREEN vanishing in the

fire.

+

+

+

CUT TO:

21 INT. KREMATORIUM - PRISONERS’ HALL UNDER THE ROOF - NIGHT

Two dozen members of the Sonderkommando are gathered in this

room under the roof of the Krematorium. A feeble electric

bulb lights the scene. A constant rumble can be heard.

The men are mostly in shirtsleeves, sitting at a table in the

middle of the room, eating their dinner. Some stand by the

wall, drinking from bottles. The men look drunk. Two or three

lie on the floor, previously engaged in a discussion, but now

their head is against the wall, almost sleeping from

exhaustion. The bread is about to fall from the hand of one

of the men.

A PRISONER who stands next to the sitting Saul empties his

pockets and places some fruits and a flask on the table.

+

PRISONER I:

(in Yiddish, excited)

Wine from Bohemia!

+

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