Son of Saul wins Golden Globe

Besides welcoming the unprecedented success of a Hungarian film, commentators ponder the Prime Minister’s message of congratulations, and the anti-Semitic comments posted by readers of Mr Orbán’s Facebook page.

Népszabadság’s front page editorial commends the authors of the first Hungarian Golden Globe winning film for approaching Auschwitz from a new angle. They succeeded in breaking with the customary Holocaust narrative, by showing that in Nazi death camps human beings were annihilated well before the moment of physical death. The left-wing daily quotes the Prime Minister’s Facebook post, in which Mr Orbán congratulates the film-makers and says that “if talent is allowed to develop freely, nothing is unattainable.” We too would like to live in such a country,” Népszabadság sarcastically remarks.

Magyar Nemzet’s István Pion confesses his personal involvement, since he played the role of a camp inmate in the film who secretly took photos. The film, he writes, changed his outlook; previously he had thought it was normal for each community to care only for their own past sufferings. Now he advises everyone to share the grief of communities other than their own.  His remark is a reaction to the more or less openly anti-Semitic remarks by readers of Mr Orbán’s Facebook post. About one third of the 265 comments posted up till Tuesday morning expressed disquiet over the success of “yet another Holocaust story”. In his final remark, Pion advises his readers “never ever read readers’ comments.”

Tags: anti-Semitism, cinema, Saul