Das große Heft

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...

This is a story about a place most people might not be able to conceive. It gives a picture of a backwards society that diminishes reality, where culminating incidents brought by suffered individuals show the truth. Twin siblings enduring the harshness of WWII in a village on the Hungarian border hedge their survival on studying and learning from the evil surrounding them. The characters in this film have a lot of depth and the realism with which they are portrayed by the actors is shocking at times. There is a real duality to all the characters. Unfairly dismissed by some as confusing, I have made the decision to award this film a rating of 7/10.

It's 1944. Twin boys live comfortable city lives. Their parents are worried about the impending Nazi defeat and upheaval. Their mother brings them to live with their bitter grandmother. They don't even know her who has been living alone in the Hungarian rural home estranged from her daughter. She's angry and beats on the boys. Local girl Harelip steals from them but she turns the table on the boys and they're the ones getting beaten. Nazis have a camp nearby. After constant beatings, the boys decide to toughen up and learn from the evil surrounding them.

It's a disturbing violent world being portrayed. The twins are not necessarily good actors. They don't get much sympathy. The grandmother is fascinating in her ugliness. It's a cold-hearted fable without anybody to root for.

This is one of those movies where you expect to have some central message, and at the end you get none

It is just pointless evil where good is bad, bad is good, and at the end you just dont care anymore

All, wrapped up with the most terrible editing I've ever seen, when one scene leads to another too fast, too messy, too crappy

Can a dysfunctional mind survive to a war? maybe for this kind of thought human does a better adaptation to a disgraceful system. The Twins here push it out his coldness showing a "natural" behavior through the movie, this is a basic instinct? war shape you to get insane. His grandmother increased that behavior, without bound and walking in an edge of life. The twins might make crazy things just for his interpretation of justice, meanwhile his book is filled with language in an innocent voice.

WWII shattered the Europeans feelings. When Humans try to reach a goal many time doesn't look sides.

The Notebook is a Hungarian film, full of criticism and allegorical situations. No neglecting to forget their effort to not take part, just a brushwork of history. Centered in twins, you can understand the miserable life in those days.