I saw this movie decades ago in passing and thought nothing of it, yet it stuck with me as the only hungarian movie i can name and i see imdb shows me i rated it very high back then for some reason. Recently i rewatched it paying more attention partly because it has developed a bit of a following these days as part of the lost days of soviet era cinema.
This is based on a book written by Zsigmond Moricz after meeting the girl in real life several years after the events in the story take place; so yes this is based on a real person, written by someone with detailed knowledge of the character. This detail is relevant to know because of the old man character that comes into her life around midway in the story. Without knowing this, you might miss an easter egg. If i have to speculate the old man in the movie is actually the writer's persona. It very much feels like who that character is based on and there are several supporting reasons. He is nice to her, he mentors her, his age fits, their relationship comes to at random. These are all the things that occurred in real life between them after their meeting. Of course in the movie (and story) for the sake of the story, he ends up dying and she is all alone again. Moricz did not want this to be a happy ending story so the nice character had to depart. Although i would certainly say, that was his character that he wrote in.
On the topic of the setting, people like to bring up how horrible 1920s-1940s hungary was pointing out the movie's environment. That is an odd take because the movie can be anywhere USA in that time period; this is very much hungarian sharecroppers if you will. There is nothing shocking about it, there is nothing special about it. If you were told this took place in alabama 1920s you would not be able to tell the difference! This is rural earth post ww1 and leading into ww2. It pretty much was the same everywhere in rural areas so there is nothing particularly horrific here at all about the location. The reason it tends to feel odd is because this was made in 1975 and religion and sense of community was not really something you could incorporate due to soviet rules on cinema. In american movies of related subject matter, you would have state, church etc factions all being part of the script and here those cannot be used. And this leaves us with a dry perspective of things, probably why people feel this is somehow worse than anywhere USA in the same time period. You are missing the whole chunk of social commentary that would normally be part of a story like that.
Another misconception people like to claim is that this is an ugly movie in terms of content. In fact it is quite mild and it tends to downplay sensitive events and their significance, while keeping story limited to a very short period in the life of the girl. And i would say that is so because this is not an abuse story like some people take it for.
This is a story of hopelessness.
There is no focus on the bad things but rather a focus on the lack of the good things. The movie does not spend time on abuse scenes and aftermaths much at all, but rather tends to show the good events that could have happened to her passing her up for one reason or another. It uses quick and rather benign scenes of mistreatment to keep reminding you her life is bad, just in case you think things might have changed. Then it focuses on scenes of benevolence and it gives you that hope that things just might get better for her but they never do at the end. And we see the girl realizing that.. she is shown for a short moment here and there a better life which doesn't materialize. It just passes her by and she is back in her usual state of deprivation and neglect.
This is important to not forget for two reasons. The first one being how the book writer met the girl this movie is about. She was about to commit suicide off a bridge around age 10 (in a city), he walked by and the rest is history. The movie and book show her around age 7 so therefore the timeline is about 3 years from the movie to her breaking point in real life, and given the location he met her, she likely just ran away at that point and was done with fosters.
Second reason is the ending of the movie which ties in with how her met her and what she was trying to do. The ending is she burns down the farmhouse of her current nasty foster family. The movie is not clear if the family dies in the flames and if the girl dies as well. However we know from real life she wanted to die, and the ending of the story would suggest she burns the farm down and dies in it herself for sure. She sees no point to life further and puts and end to it in the only way she can. This ending path signifies the only somewhat detailed scene of abuse in the movie - when she got burned by the coals. This event is the only one that has a follow up in other scenes - being bandaged, her examining the wound as it heals. Since coals are fire it is fitting this memory remained with her and hence her burning the place down later on.
It is a sad story and remained such to the end. It is not a tear jerker where you are so just so saddened over events. Quite the opposite, it is very unemotional to the viewer. I have to attribute this to the character itself and how she just takes it.. there is no drama on her side.. takes it and moves on. There are no special angles or camera tricks of trying to create moody feelings and feed emotions to the viewer.. This is what happens, and now we move on type script. You know it's bad and sad but the movie does not exploit it. Which is probably a good thing because if it did it would be so heavy it would be unwatchable. If you are craving that emotional distress production this one will not give it to you. It is a very weird thing to try to describe and i have to admit, i now understand why this movie didn't impress me 20 years ago and today watching it again it still has no real impact. It is just dry. Can't think of a better way to put it. Dry soviet era production. Yet the real stab here comes from researching the real story behind the book. Once you know it's real, it does tent to increase the care factor.
I will not change my original rating although i want to give it a 6. However in the context of soviet era cinema, this is an 8 so we keep it at that.
8\10 There is absolutely no way anyone will have the fortitude and bravery to pick this up for a remake.
This is based on a book written by Zsigmond Moricz after meeting the girl in real life several years after the events in the story take place; so yes this is based on a real person, written by someone with detailed knowledge of the character. This detail is relevant to know because of the old man character that comes into her life around midway in the story. Without knowing this, you might miss an easter egg. If i have to speculate the old man in the movie is actually the writer's persona. It very much feels like who that character is based on and there are several supporting reasons. He is nice to her, he mentors her, his age fits, their relationship comes to at random. These are all the things that occurred in real life between them after their meeting. Of course in the movie (and story) for the sake of the story, he ends up dying and she is all alone again. Moricz did not want this to be a happy ending story so the nice character had to depart. Although i would certainly say, that was his character that he wrote in.
On the topic of the setting, people like to bring up how horrible 1920s-1940s hungary was pointing out the movie's environment. That is an odd take because the movie can be anywhere USA in that time period; this is very much hungarian sharecroppers if you will. There is nothing shocking about it, there is nothing special about it. If you were told this took place in alabama 1920s you would not be able to tell the difference! This is rural earth post ww1 and leading into ww2. It pretty much was the same everywhere in rural areas so there is nothing particularly horrific here at all about the location. The reason it tends to feel odd is because this was made in 1975 and religion and sense of community was not really something you could incorporate due to soviet rules on cinema. In american movies of related subject matter, you would have state, church etc factions all being part of the script and here those cannot be used. And this leaves us with a dry perspective of things, probably why people feel this is somehow worse than anywhere USA in the same time period. You are missing the whole chunk of social commentary that would normally be part of a story like that.
Another misconception people like to claim is that this is an ugly movie in terms of content. In fact it is quite mild and it tends to downplay sensitive events and their significance, while keeping story limited to a very short period in the life of the girl. And i would say that is so because this is not an abuse story like some people take it for.
This is a story of hopelessness.
There is no focus on the bad things but rather a focus on the lack of the good things. The movie does not spend time on abuse scenes and aftermaths much at all, but rather tends to show the good events that could have happened to her passing her up for one reason or another. It uses quick and rather benign scenes of mistreatment to keep reminding you her life is bad, just in case you think things might have changed. Then it focuses on scenes of benevolence and it gives you that hope that things just might get better for her but they never do at the end. And we see the girl realizing that.. she is shown for a short moment here and there a better life which doesn't materialize. It just passes her by and she is back in her usual state of deprivation and neglect.
This is important to not forget for two reasons. The first one being how the book writer met the girl this movie is about. She was about to commit suicide off a bridge around age 10 (in a city), he walked by and the rest is history. The movie and book show her around age 7 so therefore the timeline is about 3 years from the movie to her breaking point in real life, and given the location he met her, she likely just ran away at that point and was done with fosters.
Second reason is the ending of the movie which ties in with how her met her and what she was trying to do. The ending is she burns down the farmhouse of her current nasty foster family. The movie is not clear if the family dies in the flames and if the girl dies as well. However we know from real life she wanted to die, and the ending of the story would suggest she burns the farm down and dies in it herself for sure. She sees no point to life further and puts and end to it in the only way she can. This ending path signifies the only somewhat detailed scene of abuse in the movie - when she got burned by the coals. This event is the only one that has a follow up in other scenes - being bandaged, her examining the wound as it heals. Since coals are fire it is fitting this memory remained with her and hence her burning the place down later on.
It is a sad story and remained such to the end. It is not a tear jerker where you are so just so saddened over events. Quite the opposite, it is very unemotional to the viewer. I have to attribute this to the character itself and how she just takes it.. there is no drama on her side.. takes it and moves on. There are no special angles or camera tricks of trying to create moody feelings and feed emotions to the viewer.. This is what happens, and now we move on type script. You know it's bad and sad but the movie does not exploit it. Which is probably a good thing because if it did it would be so heavy it would be unwatchable. If you are craving that emotional distress production this one will not give it to you. It is a very weird thing to try to describe and i have to admit, i now understand why this movie didn't impress me 20 years ago and today watching it again it still has no real impact. It is just dry. Can't think of a better way to put it. Dry soviet era production. Yet the real stab here comes from researching the real story behind the book. Once you know it's real, it does tent to increase the care factor.
I will not change my original rating although i want to give it a 6. However in the context of soviet era cinema, this is an 8 so we keep it at that.
8\10 There is absolutely no way anyone will have the fortitude and bravery to pick this up for a remake.
Tell Your Friends