A nagy füzet (2013) Reviews

• The souls of two young boys twisted by the horrors of war

  jkbonner12013-11-20

  The Notebook begins as World War II is winding down. As an ally of Nazi Germany and part of the Axis Powers Hungary is on the losing end. The movie focuses on two young twin boys (András and László Gyémánt), whose names we never learn. They are 12 when the movie begins in the summer of 1944 and 13 when the movie ends in the summer of 1945. To ensure their safety their parents (Gyöngyvér Bognár and Ulrich Matthes) place them in the care of the woman's mother, who lives in the countryside running a small farm. The problem is the grandmother (Piroska Molnár) has not seen her daughter in 20 years and clearly has a very low opinion of her. At the end of the movie she is surprised her daughter (after dying in a shell explosion) even had a husband. She is a mean old woman who's rumored to have poisoned her husband and the movie supports this conjecture. The villagers call her "the Witch." At the beginning of the movie the boys hate her because she keeps calling them bastards and is very mean to them. It's clear her grudge against her daughter is carried over to her grandsons to whom she shows no love nor warmth. The boys transform from normal children into two human beings who have hardened themselves both physically and psychologically to deal with the rapidly deteriorating situation in Hungary. They nonchalantly watch both their mother and baby sister get blown to bits (largely their fault) and they cunningly watch their father die crossing a minefield (entirely their fault). No remorse is shown. At the end of the movie they go their separate ways, from being inseparable twins to purposely separating themselves. To say the boys morph into monsters is not quite accurate. By the end they bear a grudging respect for their grandmother and assist her in dying after she's had a second stroke. They avenge an old Jewish man who's shown kindness to them by blowing the face off a pretty maid who turned him in to the authorities. So it's difficult to say that they've gone all the way from innocent boys to out-and-out psychopaths. The movie makes it clear the boys' transformation stems from the barbarous and irrational ordeal they are forced to endure from other people and from the War itself. They have had to survive the fall of Hungary. The German Army has pulled out as represented by the Waffen SS German Officer who departs abruptly and who's shown a homosexual interest in them. The Hungarian Army has fallen into tatters as represented by the Hungarian soldier the boys stumble upon frozen and starved to death. And the Soviet Army is rolling into Hungary raping any girl or woman they can get their hands on, like Hairlip (Orsolya Tóth). About the Soviets there's a caption that says: Welcome the liberators. They've come to take all you own. When a priest is surprised that the twins know their Ten Commandments, one of the boys comments: The Fifth Commandment says Thou Shalt Not Kill. But everyone kills. The Notebook could have used a brief introductory prologue to familiarize the viewer in more depth with the political context. Example: By 1944 the Second World War was rapidly being lost by the Axis Powers and Hungary, as an ally of the Axis Powers represented chiefly by Nazi Germany, was on the losing side. Several times in 1944 the Hungarian dictator, Admiral Horthy, sought to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies to pull Hungary out of the war but was unsuccessful. Under the direct orders of Adolf Hitler, in the autumn of 1944 the German Army (Wehrmacht) and the Waffen SS took over full control of the conduct of the war in Hungary but by the winter of 1945 Budapest, the capital of Hungary, surrendered to the rapidly advancing Soviet forces and the government of Hungary collapsed in total defeat. The Notebook is also a truly gripping and powerful movie, but definitely not for those who prefer to avoid the realities of life and who like nice, cheery, feel-good stories. Also not for those who like blow-'em-ups/shoot-'em-ups. Many of the scenes are very brutal and very intense. This movie will make you ponder in depth the inhumanity and abject cruelty some humans do to other humans. And it's still going on out there in spades in many parts of the world. The twin boys in The Notebook were not adults. The horrors of war twisted their minds forever. I hope this movie will make us think more deeply about the effect war can have on people―physically, psychologically, and emotionally―and how war can be stopped. The acting was well done and convincing and the cinematography contributed to the feel of Hungary at that time. This movie deserves to be watched. I'll end my review by saying what I said as a wrap-up in 12 Years A Slave. It's not for everyone. 9/10 PS: I saw this movie at the Hungarian Film Festival held at the Laemmle NoHo 7 on Lankershim Blvd in North Hollywood, California USA.

  More

• An Intimate, Brutal Portrayal of Childhood During War

  eo-795132015-04-03

  In one of the most remarkable scenes of 'The Notebook', twin 12 year old brothers methodically, coldly trade punches. Each swings at the other, and then stands still, face expressionless, as he receives a slew of punches back. Gradually the punches are harder, and eventually they start using belts to ratchet up then pain threshold. They are children but this is no game: they are toughening up, physically and psychologically, to survive the war. They have realized that cuddling together and wishing the war away will not save them, and they better be prepared for hunger, pain, betrayal and daily humiliations. And survive they do, although they decide that in order to do so they must blackmail priests, steal from corpses, bully their grandmother and plant explosives in someone's kitchen. The director competently handles deep staging and the use of long lens, very apt for the emotional distance the story takes with regards to the acts it depicts. The film works in large part because of the performance of László Gyémánt and András Gyémánt, real life twins, who give a stupendously restrained, controlled performances, often consisting solely of intense stares and vengeful glances. Color is mostly bleached out, music is sparse and some of the best moments consist of static, unnervingly long shots. The film is set in a small village straddling the Austro-Hungarian border during world war two. But it is not particularly interested in providing context of the war, or of Hungary's terrible plight in it, or in Nazism or in any other details of the historical setting. So don't expect to learn much about world war 2 in this film as it is merely the backdrop to a story that is really about survival and what happens to children's moral compass during war. Hungarian films are their own sub-genre. Perhaps no other country has produced such consistently bleak films, soaked in pessimism and mostly focused on moral corruption and confusion. This small gem of a film is yet another example of this cinematic tradition. This is not quite at the level of masterpieces such as 'Come and See'or 'Time of the Drunken Horses', my two favorite films about childhood during wartime, but absolutely deserves to be seen, or, to be more precise, endured.

  More

• Only real war movie I've ever seen

  dodgy-850-5704362013-11-21

  jkbonner1 has written an excellent and in-depth review of the movie, all I would like to add is that this is the first and only movie that I have ever seen that I think succeeds in realistically portraying the devastating human aspects of WWII on a personal level without resorting to sentimentalism or nostalgia. Although gruesome with plenty of disturbing scenes, it is not grotesque. For me the only movie that comes close would be Apocalypse Now - which is, of course, a very different movie but I think similar in that both give a glimpse of the inhumanity and insanity of war. I also really admired about the movie that every key character undergoes a complete transformation - it presents us with an initial situation where it seems obvious who is in the right and who is "evil", and succeeds in turning everything upside down by the end of the movie, including our own definitions of right and wrong and good and evil. The movie does of course have some inconsistencies, some scenes appear highly unlikely and the boys seem to meet with every misfortune imaginable. But I think such criticism is beside the point. Through the eyes of the boys we are shown events that did happen over and over again to thousands of people. And in the end it is up to us to consider what is "good", whether we have a right to judge any of the characters in the movie, and given such circumstances how much of our own humanity and values could any of use have maintained? BTW I signed up to IMDb just to be able to share these thoughts with you about this movie :-) and I "look forward to" one day reading the book the movie is based upon (Agota Kristof: Le grand cahier).

  More

• An European answer to P. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment

  matyas-faluvegi2014-06-29

  The Hungarian film directors are often consumed up in photography and do not care of the story. Thanks God, not here. Agota Kristof's Le Grand Cahier has such a strong storyline that it cannot be destroyed. However attempt to do so can be detected here. I hope that after a while all directors learn that a book itself is not a script, they can use movie to tell the story, even leaving out some key elements of the book. Some scenes cry that were shot on the same streets, same interiors. But this is it, that's why I gave only 8/10, as the film works. It takes you to a journey where you forget your soda and popcorn and step out to the real word afterward a bit changed. You know that it can happen. As in the summary, the circumstances can bring out the evil from everyone. Even 10 year old boys. We know this since the Lord of the Flies, but it is good to be remembered to it from time to time...

  More

• Two tough kids and a tougher grandmother survive the war

  Barev20132015-04-22

  A NAGY FŰZET = The Notebook, Hungarian, 2013. Viewed at New Hungarian film week, Budapest November, 2014 Hungarian director János SZASZ (56) does not make many films, but when he does, it's always one he has thinking about for years, has been working on for three or four years, and is worked out to the minutest last detail. In between films he is a very busy theater director which is one reason why he is so adept at handling actors. His most recent film, "The Big Notebook", came out in 2013 and was one of the prestige Films of the year, shown at numerous festivals. I was only able to catch up with it at the New Budapest Film. Week and was not disappointed. Immediate reaction: The Third film of the day, the Nightcap that ended around Ten thirty, was Janos Szasz' arty WW II period Epic, "The Notebook" (A nagy füzet), the only really big Hungarian film of 2013, that I have been hoping to catch up with all year. Classically filmed as are all of János's films, this is a harrowing tale of two teenage twin boys who are left by their mother with an extremely stout, blunt, and tough-as-nails grandmother out in the country so they can survive the war. Their father who is called off to war at the very beginning leaves them with a Large Notebook -- whence the title -- instructing them to record all of their experiences while he is gone. This they do dutifully even when they are evacuated to granma's country house. However, grandma has not seen her daughter, their mother, for twenty years, is very resentful that she left and made no effort to contact her ever since. Only grudgingly does she allow her estranged daughter to dump these kids, her biological grandchildren, on her. The rest of the story -- the bulk of the film, deals with how these resourceful kids cope with a very bad situation. very bad --- part of it under German military occupation, and how grandma eventually accepts them and they her -- but only after years of extremely brutal mutual antagonism and other harrowing experience Eventually heavy set grandma dies of a stroke, or rather is assisted in her death by the boys who's earlier hate has finally turned into respect for this incredibly feisty old woman. Left me drained -- the kind of drain You feel after taking an emotional roller coaster ride through a fully satisfying picture. more details later, but thus is one of the new recent Hungarian biggies. Hefty 69 year old actress Piroska Molnár, who is memorable from her very first scene in the picture playing the estranged acid-tongued country grandmother, is currently one of the busiest "Leading ladies" in magyar pictures. She was equally memorable in the highly controversial Hungarian Film Szemle winner TAXIDERMIA in 2006, and Will also be seen here later this week in the lead role of the surrealistic chiller FREE FALL.

  More