(Spoilers) After a couple of brief flashbacks, the story begins in Hungary in August, 1944. To wait out the war in a safer environment, twelve-year-old twin brothers have been sent from a comfortable urban apartment to their grandmother's farm on the Austrian border. Harsh would be a kind description of granny--on their first night the boys are left outside in the cold until they work around the farm to earn any privileges, like being inside.
This is not a war movie as such, but rather about the effects war has on people and the parlous moral climate that prevails. While there are some brief war-related scenes, like Jews being marched out of town and there being a nearby concentration camp, the emphasis is on what the boys are experiencing and how they react. During the course of the film, seeing what is going on around them, the boys implement a survivalist strategy by trying to toughen themselves physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Blackmail, theft, lying, and violent revenge are in their repertoire. War has turned decent, happy boys into amoral survivalists--their gradual transformation is skillfully presented.
One cavil: the boys' physical appearance does not deteriorate as much as it would have in the time frame before they meet the priest's helper who helps care for them--they are never what one would call scruffy. If the movie could have provided smells it would have been distinctly more unpleasant than it is.
Attention is paid to the complexity of human behavior. Stereotypes are avoided. The story goes in unexpected directions. Not all affirmative feeling is drained from the boys, they respond warmly to a Jewish cobbler who gives them a pair of shoes, and they befriend a neighbor girl, whom they call Harelip, who teaches them about theft. The boys participate in one instance of assisted suicide, out of compassion, and another that is problematic. By the end we see that the boys are capable of pretty much anything. The betrayal of the father in the final act is shocking. Or, given the rotten emotional and physical shape the father is in, as well as his status as an ex-soldier, was their act one of mercy?
One of the most sympathetic characters is a German SS officer who takes to the boys, there being more than a hint of a sexual undercurrent in his liking of them. This officer runs counter to any preconceived image. He wears a neck brace that prevents him from turning his head. The officer's relationship with the boys is presented in a positive light--in fact he saves the boys from being beaten in an attack that could have resulted in their death. Is pedophilia always bad? Is what the officer did to stop the attack condemnable? An example of how the movie poses moral dilemmas.
I confess that my knowledge of Hungarian history during the was is a little weak. I understood that Hungary fought on the side of the axis powers, so I was confused by how the Nazis were clearly an occupying force. A brief reading of Wikipedia on the matter is clarifying. One of the most poignant scenes has Harelip waving to the Russian "liberators" as they approach the village; they pick her up on their tank. This scene is brilliantly filmed as the tanks are initially seen in the distance and gradually approach the happy girl in real time. Later we see what the Russians did to Harelip.
Independent of its absorbing story I was struck by what an accomplished piece of film making this is. I found the two boys (twins in real life) to be believable. Piroska Molnár as the grandmother, is perfectly cast. High production values prevail. I found the spare, edgy score to be highly effective.
This movie had me questioning the morality of almost all actions. Viewed from one angle I could understand the motivations and even sympathize with what transpired. On the other hand, in a non-war setting the behaviors would be considered reprehensible. War complicates moral judgments. The use of atomic weapons at the end of WWII is still being debated over seventy years later.
The twins are presented as being inseparable from birth, so I was puzzled by their decision to part ways at the end of the movie. They could see what was happening around them, for example having suffered a physical beating that no amount of their training could have prepared them for. Their father wanted out, so why didn't both boys decide to leave the country? I would like to see two sequels to this movie, movies that follow each of the two boys in the years after the war.
This is not a war movie as such, but rather about the effects war has on people and the parlous moral climate that prevails. While there are some brief war-related scenes, like Jews being marched out of town and there being a nearby concentration camp, the emphasis is on what the boys are experiencing and how they react. During the course of the film, seeing what is going on around them, the boys implement a survivalist strategy by trying to toughen themselves physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Blackmail, theft, lying, and violent revenge are in their repertoire. War has turned decent, happy boys into amoral survivalists--their gradual transformation is skillfully presented.
One cavil: the boys' physical appearance does not deteriorate as much as it would have in the time frame before they meet the priest's helper who helps care for them--they are never what one would call scruffy. If the movie could have provided smells it would have been distinctly more unpleasant than it is.
Attention is paid to the complexity of human behavior. Stereotypes are avoided. The story goes in unexpected directions. Not all affirmative feeling is drained from the boys, they respond warmly to a Jewish cobbler who gives them a pair of shoes, and they befriend a neighbor girl, whom they call Harelip, who teaches them about theft. The boys participate in one instance of assisted suicide, out of compassion, and another that is problematic. By the end we see that the boys are capable of pretty much anything. The betrayal of the father in the final act is shocking. Or, given the rotten emotional and physical shape the father is in, as well as his status as an ex-soldier, was their act one of mercy?
One of the most sympathetic characters is a German SS officer who takes to the boys, there being more than a hint of a sexual undercurrent in his liking of them. This officer runs counter to any preconceived image. He wears a neck brace that prevents him from turning his head. The officer's relationship with the boys is presented in a positive light--in fact he saves the boys from being beaten in an attack that could have resulted in their death. Is pedophilia always bad? Is what the officer did to stop the attack condemnable? An example of how the movie poses moral dilemmas.
I confess that my knowledge of Hungarian history during the was is a little weak. I understood that Hungary fought on the side of the axis powers, so I was confused by how the Nazis were clearly an occupying force. A brief reading of Wikipedia on the matter is clarifying. One of the most poignant scenes has Harelip waving to the Russian "liberators" as they approach the village; they pick her up on their tank. This scene is brilliantly filmed as the tanks are initially seen in the distance and gradually approach the happy girl in real time. Later we see what the Russians did to Harelip.
Independent of its absorbing story I was struck by what an accomplished piece of film making this is. I found the two boys (twins in real life) to be believable. Piroska Molnár as the grandmother, is perfectly cast. High production values prevail. I found the spare, edgy score to be highly effective.
This movie had me questioning the morality of almost all actions. Viewed from one angle I could understand the motivations and even sympathize with what transpired. On the other hand, in a non-war setting the behaviors would be considered reprehensible. War complicates moral judgments. The use of atomic weapons at the end of WWII is still being debated over seventy years later.
The twins are presented as being inseparable from birth, so I was puzzled by their decision to part ways at the end of the movie. They could see what was happening around them, for example having suffered a physical beating that no amount of their training could have prepared them for. Their father wanted out, so why didn't both boys decide to leave the country? I would like to see two sequels to this movie, movies that follow each of the two boys in the years after the war.