User reviews

During wars, people do hidious crimes. At WW2 many decent, next door people like you and me, took advantage of the anti-jewish pogrom and stole their property. But the war ended in 1945, and some of them manage to return and reclaim their properties... what happened then? The guilt of course, that's what happened. I think it's the only Hungarian film i have ever watched and if you come across it, don't pass it by. Its a film worth seeing.

Almost to the end of "1945", writer/ director Ferenc Torok keeps the audience in the dark regarding the rationale of the players. It is a masterful screenplay, full of mystery and expectation, which makes the pacing seem sluggish. Gradually, however, the pieces and clues all fit together in this post-WWII story of past betrayal and cupidity.

The picture was shot in black and white and with an authentic feel of a 40's film. Torok assembled a cast of talented actors, most unknown outside of Hungary, and there is not an amateur performance among them. The star is Peter Rudolf who plays Istvan, the town clerk mainly responsible for what has befallen the town, as the two Hasidic men walk slowly into town with their 'cargo'. I am not going to tip off the reasons behind the plot, but "1945" may be the best film that has played on American soil this year. Be prepared to use your best powers of deduction as the tantalizing story unfolds, because this one will require all your concentration.

As "1945" (2017 release from Hungary; 91 min.) opens, we are reminded by the radio news anchor that it is "Friday, August 12, 1945, 10 o'clock", the day the US drops a second atomic bomb on Japan and WW II is all but over. In a remote Hungarian village, a man (we later learn he is the Town Clerk, in essence the Mayor) and his family are getting ready for the new day. It's a big day as his son is getting married. Meanwhile, a train arrives at the town's train station and getting off are two Orthodox Jews. They brought with them two large crates. The train stationmaster is alarmed for some reason, and dashes off to inform the Town Clerk. Why is the stationmaster alarmed? what does the Town Clerk do? and what is in those crates? At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this movie is co-written and directed by Hungary's Ferenc Torok. He tackles a delicate time in Hungary's history, when WW II is ending, the Soviets are there to stay, and Jews are returning (at least those that were lucky enough to survive the Holocaust). It has the potential of being a terrific story and movie, and while the movie certainly isn't bad, neither is it great, For that, the story is brought too stilted and too acted (you can practically hear the director yell "and... ACTION!" as you watch the actors on the screen. Many horrible things were done to the Jews in and after WW II, and that needs to be exposed. But I'd rather see it done in a riveting movie, say Hungary's other recent Holocaust drama, the 2016 Oscar-winning "Son of Saul", which purely as a movie is MILES better than "1945", I'm afraid. Please note that, like "son of Saul", "1945 is shot in remarkable B&W.

"1945" premiered at last year's Berlin Film Festival, and now more than a year later, appeared out of the blue on a single screen for all of Southwest Florida. The Sunday early evening screening where I saw this at a few weekends ago was attended so-so (less than 10 people). If you are interested in WW II or the treatment of Jews at that time, I'd suggest you check out "1945" in the theater (unlikely at this point), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

In the immediate aftermath of WWII, the arrival of two Jewish men turns a small Hungarian village upside down. The whole village profited from the deportation and extermination of their former Jewish neighbors, and now everyone fears exposure and ruin.

The petty vindictiveness and corruption of the villagers is their own undoing. All sorts of dire consequences ensue at the merest whiff that the villagers might be forced to take responsibility for their wartime misdeeds. This panic of the natives almost borders on slapstick; it stands in sharp contrast to the methodical, dignified simplicity of the outsiders whom the natives fear.

Great photography, great editing, great acting, great story. I highly recommend 1945.

Two unidentified Jewish men appear on the outskirts of a Hungarian town days after the end of WW2 in Europe. A cloud of anxiety, fear, guilt and remorse moves in over the townspeople as they struggle to cope with their complicity in the Holocaust during the Nazi occupation of their town.

This film deserves an award for the story it presents, if for nothing else. Two Jewish men arrive at the town rail station on the same day an important marriage is to take place, setting off a chain of events that incur chaos on a commune gripped by guilt. Some complied, some didn't, and some were forced to. Finger-pointing, backstabbing, and denial are all present as the Jewish men, walking on foot, get nearer and nearer to the town. The closer they get, the more the story heats up. All the pieces were there for this to be one of the best European films of 2017, but sadly it just doesn't deliver.

1945 presents a strong baseline, setting the stage within the first half half hour with nail-biting suspense. But it fails to go deeper, and character backstories, which are so important in a film like this, are never explored beyond the generalized conversations they have amongst each other. We never really get a sense of who did what. We might know someone complied, but why did they comply, how did they comply, who was arrested or killed at their expense? The viewer spends a lot of time guessing, attempting to piece together the puzzle by themselves, and the film never presents an answer.

If you find yourself moved by WW2 or the Holocaust , then you need to see this film. If those topics don't interest you, there's not much here to keep you engaged.

Previous reviews have failed to take account of this film's "Sitz im Leben"-- the current situation in Hungary, where the Fidesz government under Orbán Viktor has played footsie with the broad swath of irredentist voters who continue to harbor anti-Semitic leanings. Hungary has not yet come to terms with its role in the murder of its Jewish citizens. For example, the recently erected monument to Victims of Nazi Aggression portrays Hungary as a Victim State, not as a willing cooperator in the execution of roughly 5% of the national population. But it was Hungarian officials that carried out the orders, not Germans. Hungarian officialdom and non-officialdom was more than willing to participate in the Holocaust, but they are loath to acknowledge any corporate responsibility.

A personal but illustrative anecdote. About seven years ago I was teaching at a gimnázium in a town not far from Budaptest and went to see the movie "Avatar" at a local theater over a weekend. The next Monday, as part of English conversation class, I told my students what I had done, that I had gone to thus and such theater to see the movie. The immediate response to my statement came from a student whom I had come to know as a pretty bright kid who was eager to learn. He said, "Oh yes, Jews own that theater."

Where the f*** did that come from? Over the past few years I have realized that it comes from the same deep-rooted inability of Hungarians to understand that their loss of territory after WWI and their continuing economic problems come not from their "enemies" (Jews above all, but Gypsies too) but from themselves and the same culture of self-deception and corruption that is depicted in this film.

Which film, by the way, is elegantly framed and carefully composed, is presented with almost stately precision, and which I highly, highly recommend.

Always like these western movies. They deliver such a different taste..a unique environment..a stylish set of actions with different artillery.. a bunch of heavy dialogues..over all a movie of high intensity and motions...

This movie is of no exception but it is a pure western set in the nature of hungarian soil. It is about a two strangers and their series of actions to override the current situation.

Not much western movies are made now a days. Some made are not pure western. Rather they are mixture. But this one is a pure western with all the heats and posture that we saw in great western movies.

Western hunters...you have to put this one in your watchlist.....

The cinematography is beautiful, the voices, the music (Szemzo Tibor!) are amazing. The storytelling is good, although I found the acting less authentic, although it is not bothering too much. Worth watching it.

The plot concerns two conservative Jews returning to their hometown shortly after WWII and the ethics of peoples, Hungarian in this case, who were complicit in the removal of their local Jewish population and possible confiscation of properties. So the Hungarians turn out not to be the nicest neighbors. I sometimes wonder why the usury ethos of capital accumulation as a social issue is never addressed in these & similar movies. Couldn't be the film's financing? Anyway, the issue that struck me is found in this statement from father to son on his upcoming marriage, "Don't be scared of a little peasant girl. Be hard on her at first, until you've got her tamed.", i.e. females valued similarly to livestock.

An unflinching portrait of the power of conscience and the human effect of its avoidance. The post-modern narrative of identity politics and Nietzschean and victim culture here vaporizes into the dustbin of history. Human choices matter. Memory matters. Morality matters. Selfishness and structural, political complicity therewith lead to social disintegration. As C.S. Lewis wrote, revenge is the predictable arc of human affairs. There is only one thing that breaks the cycle of material human history and that is forgiveness. Go. See. This. Film.

In "The best years of our lives" (William Wyler) a couple of soldiers return home after the Second World War. They discover that the civil society is not eagerly awaiting them.

In "Homecoming 1945" not soldiers but Jews that have survived the concentration camps return. Also these Jews are not very welcome. Some people in the village have actively participated in their deportation (guilt) while others have taken their properties and are afraid that they will ask them back (greed).

The way in which the story is told has some similarities with "High noon" (1952, Fred Zinnemann). In that film a dreaded criminal will arive by train and the town pins all its hopes on the sheriff. In "Homecoming 1945" the Jews also arrive by train and the village has nothing to expect from the head of the municipality, because he is as corrupted as the average villager.

All the Jews are doing in the whole film is arriving by train, loading their luggage on a carriage and walking behind this carriage through the village. It is enough to cause a lot of unrest.

There are no shocking images in "Homecoming 1945" as there are in "Son of Saul" (2015, Laszlo Nemes), another Hungarian movie about the Second World War from a couple of years earlier. Some may find this way of treating the Second World War too sterile but in my opinion images don't have to be shocking to be disturbing.

This movie is a masterpiece! It depicts antisemitism and guilt after WWII really well. The cinematography, the music and the direction are really stunning. Bergman would have loved it. 10/10. Never forget. We remember.

It's a brilliant story of guilt and buried secrets coming to the fore. Using the aesthetics of a western with direct borrowing from High Noon and from Sergio Leone, especially the waiting for the train scene in Once Upon a Time in the West. But in this case its used to point the complete absence of any real hero from the story. The most heroic act performed by any character in this movie is going away.

This story is a story about all consuming guilt, about petty jealousies and how sin is its own punishment. But above all it's a story of how the war doesn't end when it ends. And it's done with a very competent hand and deep understanding of cinematic media. A very good ensemble of actors, amazing cinematography, great story and superlative directing.

Ferenc Török's 1945 takes place in a backward Hungarian village at the end of World War II, when liberating Russian soldiers are present. Based on Gábor T. Szántó's short story "Homecoming" and filmed in black and white with striking authentically, 1945 focuses on human morality and behavior. Two categories of people are juxtaposed to strengthen this study: the poor, undereducated rural community led by their abhorrent town clerk István, and two silent Jewish strangers who arrive by train to the town. The Jewish father and son, clad formally in black, hire a cart at the train station to transport their two sealed trunks to an unspecified destination. They choose to walk behind the cart, and the camera comes back to them often, reiterating their silent, dignified trek along the dirt road that leads to town. In contrast, the villagers who await them are already in a panic—which Jews are they and what have they come for? Knowing nothing about the strangers—other than the stationmaster's fast-spreading rumor that their trunks contain perfume—the villagers jump to the conclusion that their own futures are at stake. They obsess about their fate because of their individual and collective guilt about what happened to their Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust. Their guilt dictates that only their role in the Jews' deportation can explain the visitors' arrival.

The townfolks' commotion and generally nasty relationships to each other contrast to the silent walkers, with the cinematography of the two worlds also in contrast: the empty natural landscape versus the village hubbub where everybody knows everybody else's business, including everyone's wartime betrayals and illegal possession of Jewish property. The film takes as its subject how human guilt cannot be suppressed, but rather with the slightest provocation erupts defensively, often with more lies, and causes destruction of various sorts. Some of the guilty parties have remorse, others not, but either way, their guilt ignites havoc and dire consequences.

The quiet pilgrims on foot see and hear nothing of this village chaos as they pass through the town en route to their destination. Their straight carriage conveys dignity and honor, in contrast to their counterparts staring at them through windows, or racing about to burn evidence of their treachery or to hide wrongly inherited valuables. The returning Jews have no need to communicate to the villagers, other than to hire a cart for their trunks. The villagers are invisible to them; they don't exist as moral beings. Even István's offered handshake is proof of their hypocrisy.

Finally, the villagers' panic comes to breaking point, and led by István they go to the Jews who have reached their destination and humbly ask what they have come for. The villagers' guilt and their fate must have answers.

What they then learn, whether or not the truth sinks into their unenlightened heads, is that the father and son have come for something far deeper than the material possessions the villagers are so distraught about. The villagers didn't care about the Jews in the early 1940s and they don't care now—their anxiety is about their own safety and comfort—at the expense of children and families, their own neighbors and friends, whom they helped to murder. At heart a parable—though the lesson is lost on the villagers, which is a lesson in itself—1945 treats audiences to fine cinematography by Elemér Ragályi and villager roles well-acted by Péter Rudolf as István, Dóra Sztarenki Kisrózsi as his wife, and József Szarvas as Mr. Kustár. Iván Angelus and Marcell Nagy play the Sámuels, father and son.

This film tells the story of the arrival of two Jewish men in a quiet Hungarian town just after the Second World War. Residents react according to the ghosts of their past, creating a butterfly effect of a disastrous magnitude.

1945" is a beautiful black and white film. Every frame is well thought out. It fits the era of 1945, and enhances the haunting atmosphere of the film.

The story is captivating because it makes you think hard. It tells some aspects of the story through dialogues, but does not tell the entire story plainly. Viewers have to think and recreate the complete story, and that story is a haunting one that leaves a long lasting impact. It is a great film, and I'm glad I had a chance to watch it.

I found the direction, camera work, editing and score to be excellent. It moves methodically as the two men's movement from the train station to the destination in the post war village.

It has many of the same themes and elements as its Polish cousins, Ida and Civil War, although I found Ida to be more powerful and Civil War to be grander. Regardless this is terrific film making.

And for the reviewer below: the Jewish Sabbath runs from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, this film takes place during the day on Friday, so it's not the Sabbath.

Moody black and white photography, immaculate period sets and costumes, exquisite attention to the smallest detail, slow pedestrian movement at 1945 pace, a bicycle ridden by the stationmaster, a motorbike and sidecar and a jeep are the only motorized vehicles seen in this quaint Hungarian village, the main vehicle focus is on a horse drawn cart which is central to the story. Cats, chickens and dogs complete the pastoral setting perfectly. Without a doubt a 10 for all aspects particularly the photography.