November 1, 2017 The Skanner Page 7
Arts & Entertainment
FILM REVIEW: Holocaust Survivors Return to Hungarian Hometown in ‘1945’
By Kam Williams
For The Skanner News
I
t is Aug. 12, 1945. Japan
is reeling and on the
verge of surrender
in the wake of atomic
bomb attacks on Hiroshi-
ma and Nagasaki. With
Germany having surren-
dered to the Allies back
in the spring, Europe
is already in postwar
mode, though not exactly
at peace, as we are about
to learn.
For, this bright summer
day is when Samuel Her-
mann (Ivan Angelus) and
his son (Marcell Nagy)
disembark from a train
that has just rolled into
their rural Hungarian
hometown. Oddly, their
arrival doesn’t inspire
the locals to celebrate the
fact that a couple of their
Jewish neighbors, carted
away by the Nazis, had
miraculously survived
the Holocaust.
Instead, the easily
identifi able
Orthodox
pair are greeted with
suspicion, because their
property had long since
been appropriated by
somebody in the tight-
knit town. So, as they
load their luggage onto
a horse-drawn-carriage,
“
nity, warning, “They’re
here! Jews are back!”
Among his ports-of-call
is the drugstore the Her-
manns had been forced
to leave behind, which
is now in his own son’s
(Bence Tasnadi) hands.
That is the compel-
ling point of departure
of 1945, one of the most
intriguing
Holocaust
The...Orthodox pair are
greeted with suspicion, be-
cause their property had
long since been appropriated
the village notary (Peter
Rudolf ) directs the driv-
er (Miklos B. Szekely) to
go very slowly.
The delay buys him
the time to ride ahead
and thereby serve as a
latter-day Paul Revere to
the rest of the commu-
dramas to come along
in years. Aft er all, it ad-
dresses a question gener-
ally swept under the rug
by historians, namely:
what kind of reception
awaited concentration
camp internees who opt-
ed to repatriate rather
Kam says ‘1945’ is “one of the most intriguing Holocaust dramas to come along in years”
than emigrate to Israel?
Directed by Ferenc
Torok (Moscow Square),
the fi lm is based on
“Homecoming,” a short
story by Gabor T. Szan-
to. The picture was shot
in black & white, which
serves to amplify the so-
lemnity of the Hermanns
as they walk in silence
behind the deliberate-
!
e
t
a
d
e
h
t
e
v
a
S
ly-paced buggy.
Their dignifi ed behav-
ior cuts such a sharp
contrast with that of the
suddenly-alarmed citi-
zens, most of whom re-
spond by closing ranks
and wondering how
many other “interlopers”
might soon assert claims
to land they’d taken title
to legally. A powerful
parable of Biblical pro-
portions,
illustrating
both man’s inhumanity
to man, as well as his ca-
pacity to forgive, if not
necessarily to forget.
Excellent
Unrated
In Black & White
In Hungarian and Rus-
sian with subtitles
–NEW–
LOCAT
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JAN. 15
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