Örök tél

I watched this at the Raindance Film Festival and it was the most powerful film I watched there. It deserved a shot at an Oscar. Incredible film making and acting, I left in tears having watched a true masterpiece. Watch this film

EN: Eternal Winter tells a strong story from WWII, and the setting feels real. The idea was good, but the plot and acting didn't fully work. It's not Hollywood quality, but it's decent for a Hungarian film. It reminded me of the stories my grandparents told about the Nazi and Soviet invasions in Romania. It also made me think of the Romanians who died in the Soviet gulags, many in Siberia. Only a few ever came back. These memories made the film feel more personal to me. It's a nice film to add to any WWII collection, especially for those who want to learn more about what happened in Eastern Europe.

Internationally, this movie is know under the name "Eternal Winter". And on first face, you might think this is not a movie about WW2. But it is. And a relevant one. This movie is based on true events and starts in December 1944. It hows how the russian troops raped and enslaved women - especially the large group of ethnic germans (the so-called Danube Swabians) living in Hungary - from the countries that they occupied. Slave labor to support the war effort. And all in agreement with the other allied countries through Churchill and Roosevelt. Women were first transported in trains carts - originally meant for animal transport - and put in siberian gulags (concentration camps) to work in coal mines under terrible conditions.

So the countries in east europe that were so-called "liberated" by the allied soviet forces, were actually faced with terror. Terror that is very well displayed in this movie. The acting is thereby pretty decent and also the scenes look convincing as taking place during the mid 1940's.

Overall, I score this movie with 7.0/10, resulting in a 7-star IMDb score. It very well shows the horrors some people experienced after the soviet forces liberated them from the Nazi regime.

ETERNAL WINTER (Orok Tel) is the second war related Hungarian movie i watched after GLOOMY SUNDAY (1999). Both gave me tears after watching. Movie shows the true history, in 1944-45 approximately 700,000 Hungarian men & women were taken to forced labour by the orders of Stalin, 300,000 of them never returned home. A MUST WATCH

A fine addition to the War Drama category from Hungary portraying atrocities of World War II this time focusing on forced encamping and ruthless handling of women of Hungary by Gulag forces of Soviet Union in harsh winters for many years. The movie follows Irén (Marina Gera) with other innocent females who are transported two thousand kilometers away from their homes for forced labor.

It was quite shocking to note that the forced labor and persecution of internees including hundreds of thousands of Hungarians remained in force with the agreement and consent of other world powers at that time, which continued even when the war was over.

The acting performances and cinematography are good, but the ending sequence respecting lead roles is not logical, which could have been avoided in such a fine movie.