“Ferenc Torok’s lean, suggestive Hungarian feature, 1945, shot in gorgeous, high-contrast black-and-white, is a Holocaust film built, consciously or not, on a reversal of the tropes of the western…. Absorbing and finely wrought.” (New York Times)
On a sweltering August day in 1945, residents of a small Hungarian town are preparing for a wedding when an Orthodox man and his grown son arrive with a mysterious crate. The town clerk fears the men may be descendants of the village’s deported Jews and expects them to demand the return of their family’s property, which was unjustly seized during the war. The villagers—in turn suspicious, remorseful, and calculating—expect the worst and behave accordingly. Director Ferenc Török paints a complex, multilayered picture of members of a society trying to come to terms with the horrors they recently experienced, perpetrated, or simply tolerated for personal gain. Striking black-and-white cinematography and a superb ensemble cast add to the impact of Gábor T. Szántó’s acclaimed short story “Homecoming,” the film’s inspiration.
SPONSORED BY AJC
Tickets: $10 (members), $15 (nonmembers)
