{"id":15986,"date":"2017-05-09T13:19:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T17:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=15986"},"modified":"2017-05-09T13:26:37","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T17:26:37","slug":"film-1945-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=15986","title":{"rendered":"Film: 1945 (2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Film<\/strong>: Very Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0n\/a<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong> n\/a<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong> n\/a<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 n\/a<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Drama<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0The arrival of two strangers in a post-WWII Hungarian village\u00a0exposes a dark secret that tears the community apart.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 n\/a<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ferenc T\u00f6r\u00f6k\u2019s drama unravels as a minimalist thriller, as a train brings two strangers into a postwar Hungarian train station\u00a0bearing a set of slim wooden boxes. Soviet soldiers roam around town rather aimlessly, but the sight of the silent visitors sends fear throughout town.<\/p>\n

Like a Morse Code message being electrically relayed person-to-person, high and low members of the town are alerted of the Jewish strangers, heading into town as they escort on foot the boxes being ferried by a horse-drawn lorry.\u00a0 T\u00f6r\u00f6k intercuts their inevitable arrival between increasingly tense scenes in which Istv\u00e1n Szentes’s (Peter Rudolf) perfect day is systematically ruined: his weak-willed son \u00c1rp\u00e1d (Bence Tasn\u00e1di) is set to wed Kisr\u00f3zsi (D\u00f3ra Sztarenki) in an arrangement that will sever her passionate romance with Jansci (Tam\u00e1s Szab\u00f3 Kimmel), a more rebellious lad; and his wife Anna (Eszter Nagy-K\u00e1l\u00f3zy) ultimately aides in the day\u2019s calamity after sobering up from a habitual drug-induced state.<\/p>\n

As Czech director Jan Kadar dramatized in vicious satirical drama The Shop onMain Street<\/a><\/strong> (1965), the arrival of Fascists in a small town led to Jewish businesses being appropriated by locals, who \u2018managed\u2019 shops and elegant homes while their rightful owners were ultimately carted off to the death camps. Although set in Hungary, T\u00f6r\u00f6k\u2019s film doesn\u2019t focus on horrors, but deceit and lies, and their caustic nature which breaks apart a cover Istv\u00e1n\u2019s managed to maintain during the war.<\/p>\n

Suspicions raise fears of reclamation \u2013 Are the two men emissaries or spies checking to see who\u2019s remained faithful to the agreements between locals and Jewish owners? \u2013 and Istv\u00e1n finds not all participants of his scheme have been able to expunge guilt. As he\u2019s eventually told face-to-face, the whole town knows the degree to which he wrangled a fine house and local drugstore from the Pollok family, so the question director T\u00f6r\u00f6k poses is whether the pair\u2019s arrival is for justice, or something more simple, given their arrival doesn\u2019t come with any police escort.<\/p>\n

By keeping the mystery vague and focusing on the emergence of the town\u2019s Big Lie, T\u00f6r\u00f6k has a tough challenge in building and offering plot, plus balancing details of the men with the various storylines that add background to the town\u2019s major characters. Tibor Szemz\u0151\u2019s score is more successful in conveying ambient fragments of thematic material that occasionally blend into something musically palpable, and 1945<\/strong>\u2019s main problem is the thin depth of the characters and Istv\u00e1n himself, who\u2019s broadly portrayed as a cigar-chomping, booze-guzzling overload.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s strongest material lies in the motifs of corruption that corrode almost every citizen. Teenage daughters nervously shake, wives take drugs, brides cheat on their fianc\u00e9s, and the men seek refuge by almost pickling themselves in caustic brandy by the bottle.<\/p>\n

The filmmakers convey history through impressions, and the downside for audiences that is without familiarity of actual events, aspects of the town\u2019s actions and postwar state are fuzzy, especially the Soviet soldiers who really don\u2019t do anything except ride around town in a Jeep and catcall women.<\/p>\n

Elem\u00e9r Rag\u00e1lyi\u2019s B&W cinematography is very stark and clean and features some striking compositions, and the location and production design and beautifully evocative of a picturesque, insular village that resembles a generic European rural town, especially the type that blends into the natural surroundings and hides potential secrets known only to a select few.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a modest production that offers an eerie glimpse into the central lifespan of a lie after its been seeded, and nears the end of its power.<\/p>\n

An interview with director\u00a0Ferenc T\u00f6r\u00f6k (Hungarian only) is available on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2017 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a> \u00a0— \u00a0Composer Filmography<\/a>
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\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

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