IMDB User Rating: 7.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics' Rating: 92%
Director: Lajos Koltai
AllMovie Plot Summary: One young man's devastating voyage through the Holocaust sets the stage for this powerful drama. Gyorgy "Gyurka" Koves (Marcell Nagy) is a 14-year-old Jewish boy living in Hungary when the Nazi pogroms begin sweeping through the country. Gyura's father (Janos Ban) has his business taken away from him not long before he's taken away to a concentration camp, and as he's led away, Gyura agrees to his father's request to look after his stepmother while he's gone. However, Gyurka takes a bus rather than the train to work the following morning, believing it to be safer, but before it can reach its destination, police stop the vehicle and take the Jewish passengers into custody. Gyurka is sent to Auschwitz, but is later transferred to Buchenwald, and finally to Zeitz; at each stop the teenager is witness to greater and greater horrors, as different varieties of torture and violence are introduced with each passing day, until his emotions begin to wear away. (Summary by Mark Deming)
Matthew's Review: It was a real treat to see something with a Hungarian perspective. I always enjoy seeing something from the perspective of a new culture. This tells a story in a creative way, and there is no attempts to pretty things up unnecessarily. It was beautifully shot and I still have some shots in my memory over a week later. I think of the yard where the Jews waited to be transported and the bombing and fire-fights going on over-head. I also remember a scene while their train makes a stop and a Hungarian Official tries to rip-off any valuables they still have for some water. While there are countless films that deal with the Holocaust, I feel this one provides a unique perspective of concentrating on the difficulty after the concentration camps, and not merely just in them. I feel the film did seem to end too suddenly as it began to explore its subject matter. However, perhaps it is not up to me to decide how much it should cover its subject matter. I give this film a 3.3/5
Ryan's Review: This film does its job in telling the horrific details of main character György's experiences in a concentration camp. Since this is a holocaust film, many of the scenes in it are colorless and uninviting. Despite that, the cinematography in this movie frames the shots in a way that gives each scene a dose of artistic beauty. As moving and disheartening as the story of György's youth is, I felt as though this movie wasn't anything new or different to me. I don't want to say it's 'just another holocaust story' because it a true life account of one man's shocking journey through his teens, but at the end of the movie it hinted at something I would've liked to see more of: the happiness and beauty that young György found within the concentration camps. That would have been a movie that I've yet to see about World War II. At any rate, this movie did an excellent job of showing hope and despair intermingled throughout. It was filmed with delicate perfection and quality acting. I give this one 3.75/5
Monson & Yeomans Rating: 7.05/10
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