Advertisement

arts entertainmentMovies

The spoils of war and the sins of the past make for a tense, taut '1945' in Hungary

"1945" resonates as a story of people doing terrible things to other people in the name of opportunity and getting ahead.

Two men amble off a train and a ripple of panic spreads through their surroundings. They load two crates onto a horse-drawn cart and head into a small Hungarian town. We could be in a classic Western: Who are these strangers, and what do they want?

The answers come slowly in 1945 as the tension ratchets up amid a carefully structured narrative. By the time this taut Hungarian morality tale has run its course, all of the suspicious villagers will be damaged in one way or another. But it seems they've been damaged from the start. The bill has merely come due.

Based on a short story by Gábor T. Szántó, 1945, which played the 2017 Jewish Film Festival of Dallas,  is a study of bad karma come home to roost. Bearing the brunt of it is István (Péter Rudolph), the burly, swaggering town clerk with the most blood on his hands. The year is 1945; a radio informs us that World War II is now concentrated in the Pacific. As the film begins, István is preparing for the wedding of his son Árpád (Bence Tasnádi), which means lot of backslapping and glad-handing and brandy drinking. But something clearly isn't right. Occupying Russian soldiers still linger in town.  The patriarch's wife (Eszter Nagy-Kálózy) is in bed, nearly catatonic, huffing on the fumes of an unidentified drug. The bride's family seems a tad nervous. Soon, everyone is. Word of the two strangers brings an ashen look to everyone who hears it.

Advertisement
News Roundups

Catch up on the day's news you need to know.

Or with:

Gradually, we learn why. "The Jews have arrived," gasps one worried villager. "They all look alike to me," says another, as the older Orthodox man (the late Iván Angelus) and his adult son (Marcell Nagy) make their way through town. Through snippets of dialogue we get a sense of what they might want. Several villagers, particularly István, have done quite well for themselves while their Jewish neighbors have been sent to concentration camps. István now lords over a prosperous drugstore. It takes a brandy-soaked and guilt-ridden sot named Bandi (Jozsef Szarvas) to clue us in to just how ill-gotten István's gains have been.

Director Ferenc Török renders the broiling drama in crisp, flat black and white; it feels both timeless and specific to the circumstances of a small Eastern European town in the war's final days. The camera creeps from room to room, around corners and through doors and windows, furtively glimpsing the quiet dread. The score relies on sparse bass and strings, occasionally blended with the persistent clopping of horse hoofs. 1945 is a confident, finely paced piece of visual storytelling.

Advertisement

The word "Holocaust" is never uttered but it doesn't have to be. Look closely and you can see the number on the young visitor's arm, and the mixture of sadness and rage in his father's eyes. Set in a specific time and place, 1945 also resonates as a story of people doing terrible things to other people in the name of opportunity and getting ahead. It hits home at a time when the idea of loving thy neighbor feels sadly passé.

1945

(B+)

Not rated. In Hungarian and Russian with English subtitles. 91 minutes. At the Landmark Magnolia.