There’s a mercy in the tight close-ups that dominate László Nemes’ debut feature film: We don’t see much of what is going on around the title character, a Sonderkommando at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 who herds prisoners, sorts belongings and scrubs the gas chamber floor, until it’s his turn to be slaughtered.

As the Sonderkommandos plot a revolt, Saul (Géza Röhrig) risks lives to find a rabbi to bury a boy he believes to be his son. It’s a harrowing story, as Tamás Zányi’s sound design spells out the horror left in soft focus behind Rohrig’s head.

Yet while Nemes criticized “Schindler’s List” as “conventional,” all that’s new here is the hyper-realistic technique: Saul’s quest is not very far from the girl in the red dress.