Review by dingo865

This film is easily on the same level as The Pianist, but a lot more subtle and poetical, made 15 years earlier than Polanski's film - and also on a much more modest budget. It's not 'just' about a child's journey through the Shoa; it's also about much greater issues, such as the uncomfortable realization that being 'good' (as in behaving properly and humbly, forcing ourselves to follow 'respectable people' and their norms and beliefs) is exploited by evil to destroy good itself. It's about a journey most of us are forced to make in our lives at one point or another, and compels the viewer to face up to the starkest conclusions. Made just a few years before the fall of the Communist regime in Hungary, it was also fairly courageous in its choice of subject matter, ethical stance, and focus. It has its flaws (most of them due to its budgetary constraints and subsequent technological limits) yet it remains one of my most memorable movie experiences. The ending seared itself into my mind for the last 34 years.