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Fateless (2005)

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From Time Out London

Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész’s screen adaptation of his semi-autobiographical novel is a major addition to the cinema of the Holocaust. Since Hungary was nominally a German ally, it wasn’t until 1944 that deportations began to affect Budapest’s largely assimilated Jewish population, which in part explains 14-year-old Gyuri Köves’ initial disbelief as he’s packed into a train for Auschwitz. He’s soon forced to adjust his perspective, given the daily round of endurance that becomes his lot, yet amid the suffering, there’s also comradeship allowing him to retain a precarious grip on his humanity.

Measured, unsentimental, and of a sustained intensity appropriate to but never exploitative of the situation, Lajos Koltai’s directorial début explores the horrifying ramifications of perseverance in the face of incomprehensible horror. Here wide-eyed Marcell Nagy’s unbelievably committed central performance potently embodies the struggle to maintain an individual identity beyond mere victimhood. Although the film’s imposing colour-drained images and Ennio Morricone’s powerful score are striking indeed, this emphasis on essential selfhood marks it out from, say, ‘Schindler’s List’. Relatively few films touching on the Holocaust are worthy of their subject; this one is.

Author: Trevor Johnston

Time Out London Issue 1863: May 3-10 2006

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Technoguy said...

Posted on Jan 14 2009 00:41 I forgot!

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Technoguy said...

Posted on Jan 10 2008 12:09 This is a grim subject but a remarkable translation to sceenplay and film of a great novel. I read the novel and I thought this was a moving treatment.This is not about watching a victim.This is about a child so fully immersed in this world that he has moments of boredom or happiness or lucidity.There is a fully worked out philosophy of survival and therefore a contempt for those people beyond the laager who sensationalise it.This young man is displaced on leaving the several camps he passes through.He senses peoples disapproval or attempts to keep him at a distance in the outside world.The young actor's performance is remarkable.Imre Kertez was not happy with the Ist screenwriter's attempts at story telling through the use of flash-back so he took this job on himself.He wanted the viewer to soberly witness the horrors at hand and keep our humanity.You realize how wrong Schindler's List is and how wrong it is to write /film a subject that requires great sensitivity and inner steel.Surprised it was not more favourably reviewed.We see through this child's eyes the absurdities he comes to witness as normal.

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