The Official Blog of Laemmle Theatres.

blog.laemmle.com

The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

  • All
  • Theater Buzz
    • Claremont 5
    • Glendale
    • Newhall
    • NoHo 7
    • Royal
    • Santa Monica
    • Town Center 5
  • Q&A’s
  • Locations & Showtimes
    • Claremont
    • Glendale
    • NewHall
    • North Hollywood
    • Royal (West LA)
    • Santa Monica
    • Town Center (Encino)
  • Film Series
    • Anniversary Classics
    • Culture Vulture
    • Worldwide Wednesdays
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube

Jewish Journal L.A.: ‘1945’ Examines Postwar Angst in Hungary.

November 22, 2017 by Lamb L.

‘1945’ Examines Postwar Angst in Hungary
BY TOM TUGEND | PUBLISHED NOV 17, 2017

An ancient train, belching black smoke, pulls into a station near an unnamed Hungarian village and out step two Orthodox Jews. Not losing a moment, the stationmaster sounds the alarm: “The Yids are coming!”

The year — and the title of the movie — is “1945,” a time when the inhabitants of the village and the rest of their countrymen have arrived at a junction in history and are unsure which path to follow.

While Hungary’s Holocaust-themed movie “Son of Saul” won the Academy Award for foreign-language film two years ago, exhibiting the full horror of the Shoah and its concentration camps, the postwar “1945” probes the potential for greed and selfishness in every human being.

“We are the third postwar generation,” director Ferenc Torok said in a phone interview from Budapest. “And a lot of people are asking what their parents and grandparents did during the world war.”

The film takes place in the middle of summer as the villagers till their fields, smoke and drink endlessly, and prepare for the wedding of the son of a domineering town clerk to a pretty peasant girl. Nazi Germany had surrendered two months earlier, in May, and while some Soviet troops have arrived, the Communist puppet government has not yet assumed power.

The two arriving Jews — the older clad in a black coat and hat and his adult son wearing a workman’s cap and clothing — unload two large trunks and hire a horse-drawn cart and its driver to carry their load for the hour-long trip to the village, while father and son follow behind on foot.

As the odd procession wends its way through the countryside, the stationmaster’s warning stokes the villagers’ fears that the survivors among their former Jewish neighbors now will demand the return of the houses, businesses and furniture they left behind when they were deported to concentration camps. That means the town clerk would no longer own the drug store and his wife could no longer glory in the beautiful rugs, dishes and silver menorah of the previous owner.

In the ensuing panic, some try to hide their ill-gotten gains, while others put their hopes in papers, signed by the pro-Nazi wartime government, “officially” transferring the abandoned homes and goods to the gentile neighbors.

When horse, cart and the “Yids” arrive at the village, women peek through shutters, the pharmacist tries to hide his tubes and bottles. Rumors spread that the trunks contain perfumes and beauty aids to sell to the village women.

Finally, the cart and two men arrive at the gates of the abandoned Jewish cemetery. The younger Jew, with a concentration camp number tattooed on his forearm, takes a key out of his pocket and opens the rusty gate, as a posse of hostile villagers gathers nearby. Inside the cemetery, father and son open the trunks and bury the unexpected contents. In the final scene, the two strangers re-board the train, their mission accomplished.

The result is a masterfully directed, acted and photographed movie, which again disproves predictions that the time of the Holocaust-themed movie has expired, even as the last eyewitnesses are dying.

Torok, who is not Jewish, said that part of the continued interest in a place like Hungary, whose Jewish population was decimated during the war, has to do with the fact that for many years while the nation was a Communist satellite, the subject of the Holocaust — and particularly the participation of many Hungarians in it — was taboo. The same applied to the collaboration of many Hungarians with Hitler’s regime, as German and Hungarian troops fought together in the invasions of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.

The film started as a short story by Hungarian Jewish writer Gabor T. Szanto, titled “Homecoming,” which won the Yad Vashem Avner Shalev Prize for best artistic representation of a Holocaust-related topic. Torok, relying on Szanto’s intimate knowledge of Jewish life and rituals, asked him also to write the screenplay.

In a separate phone interview, Szanto, editor of the Hungarian-Jewish magazine “Szombat” (Sabbath), made a number of observations on Hungarian Jewry, past but mostly present.

“The Holocaust is still the cornerstone of our thinking, not only for Hungary’s 80,000 Jews (compared with 450,000 before World War II) but to every other Nazi-occupied nation,” he said. “This film is really Europe’s story.”

In general, Hungarian Jews, like their American counterparts, tend to be liberals and left-leaning and they are concerned by their country’s political shift to the right, Szanto said. Among the worrisome signs is the growing strength of the nationalistic Jobbik party.

Another sign is the recent public poster campaign by the Hungarian government, depicting George Soros, a Hungarian-American and Jewish billionaire and philanthropist, as the mastermind of a massive of influx of illegal immigrants from the Middle East into Hungary.

“As a writer, I am a bit of an outsider and try to look at Hungary and its Jewish community realistically,” Szanto said. “We have many problems, but I don’t think they can be solved by ideologies. We can believe in ideals, but our solutions must be realistic. You can’t change human nature.”

“1945” begins screening on Nov. 25 at Laemmle’s Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles, Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and Town Center in Encino, as well as Westpark 8 in Irvine. On Dec. 8, the film will open at the Laemmle’s Claremont 5 in Claremont.

 

 

© Copyright 2017 Tribe Media Corp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCg3jVRX85A&feature=em-subs_digest

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email

Filed Under: Claremont 5, Featured Films, Films, Playhouse 7, Press, Royal, Town Center 5

1 Comment
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Debbie Tannenbaum
Debbie Tannenbaum
7 years ago

Wonder film! The story needed to be told. Cinematography, music, emotional intrigue were masterly crafted!
Deborah Tannenbaum

0

Search

Featured Posts

CROUPIER 25th Anniversary Screening with Clive Owen in Person June 4 at the Royal.

1970s New York City on the brink ~ DROP DEAD CITY opens tomorrow.

Instagram

Part of the #AnniversaryClassics Series! 🎟️ l Part of the #AnniversaryClassics Series! 🎟️ laem.ly/42NC2NX

Croupier actor #CliveOwen will participate in a Q&A following the June 4 screening at the Royal.  Producer-marketing consultant #MikeKaplan will introduce the screening.

Clive Owen, who had mainly appeared in British television dramas before this, rose to full-fledged movie stardom as a result of this movie. He plays an aspiring writer who takes a job at a casino where he juggles a few romantic relationships and also has to contend with a robbery threat. Alex Kingston, Gina McKee, Kate Hardie, and Nicholas Ball costar. The script was written by Paul Mayersberg, who also wrote Nicolas Roeg’s 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' and 'Eureka,' as well as Nagisa Oshima’s 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.'
A NEW GIVEAWAY! Laemmle has 2 epic prize packs for A NEW GIVEAWAY! Laemmle has 2 epic prize packs for the new Wes Anderson film The Phoenician Scheme opening June 6th!

How to enter:
⭐ Like this post
⭐ Enter the contest from the bio
#ThePhoenicianScheme #Giveaway #Laemmle

A winner will be randomly selected from all entries on June 10!
🗓️ Giveaway ends June 6th, 2025.
“Are you tired of streaming movies from your cou “Are you tired of streaming movies from your couch?” Conan O’Brien has a solution for you.
"Wait, isn't this just a movie thea-......"

Epic films, elevated food, and LA's best popcorn! Visit your local Laemmle this Memorial Day Weekend and all summer! Serving cinephiles since 1938. 

Get tickets: laemmle.com
Part of the #WorldwideWednesdays Series! 🎟️ l Part of the #WorldwideWednesdays Series! 🎟️ laem.ly/42k5iM0
#Niki 
Paris, 1952. Niki has recently moved from the U.S. with her husband and daughter.
Despite this newfound distance from a family and country that were suffocating her, disturbing flashbacks of her childhood continue to invade her thoughts. From the hell she is about to discover, Niki will find in her art a weapon to free herself.
Follow on Instagram

Laemmle Theatres

Laemmle Theatres
Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/lost-starlight | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/3b8JTym | In 2050 Seoul, an astronaut dreaming of Mars and a musician with a broken dream find each other among the stars, guided by their hopes and love for one another.

Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/lost-starlight

RELEASE DATE: 5/30/2025
Director: Han Ji-won
Cast: Justin H. Min, Kim Tae-ri, Hong Kyung

-----
ABOUT LAEMMLE: Since 1938, Laemmle [Theatres] has been showing the finest independent, arthouse, and international films.

Subscribe to Laemmle's E-NEWSLETTER: http://bit.ly/3y1YSTM
Visit Laemmle.com: http://laemmle.com
Like LAEMMLE on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/3Qspq7Z
Follow LAEMMLE on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/3O6adYv
Follow LAEMMLE on INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/3y2j1cp
Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/echo-valley | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/3b8JTym | Kate lives a secluded life—until her troubled daughter shows up, frightened and covered in someone else's blood. As Kate unravels the shocking truth, she learns just how far a mother will go to try to save her child

Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/echo-valley

RELEASE DATE: 6/13/2025

-----
ABOUT LAEMMLE: Since 1938, Laemmle [Theatres] has been showing the finest independent, arthouse, and international films.

Subscribe to Laemmle's E-NEWSLETTER: http://bit.ly/3y1YSTM
Visit Laemmle.com: http://laemmle.com
Like LAEMMLE on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/3Qspq7Z
Follow LAEMMLE on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/3O6adYv
Follow LAEMMLE on INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/3y2j1cp
Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/drop-dead-city | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/3b8JTym | NYC, 1975 - the greatest, grittiest city on Earth is minutes away from bankruptcy when an unlikely alliance of rookies, rivals, fixers and flexers finds common ground - and a way out. Drop Dead City is the first-ever feature documentary devoted to the NYC Fiscal Crisis of 1975, an extraordinary, overlooked episode in urban American history.

Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/drop-dead-city

RELEASE DATE: 5/23/2025
Director: Michael Rohatyn, Peter Yost

-----
ABOUT LAEMMLE: Since 1938, Laemmle [Theatres] has been showing the finest independent, arthouse, and international films.

Subscribe to Laemmle's E-NEWSLETTER: http://bit.ly/3y1YSTM
Visit Laemmle.com: http://laemmle.com
Like LAEMMLE on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/3Qspq7Z
Follow LAEMMLE on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/3O6adYv
Follow LAEMMLE on INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/3y2j1cp
Load More... Subscribe

Recent Posts

  • CROUPIER 25th Anniversary Screening with Clive Owen in Person June 4 at the Royal.
  • The Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP) @ Laemmle NoHo ~ The World’s Greatest: Photography On and Off Stages.
  • A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY Q&A’s June 12 at the NoHo and June 14 at the Monica Film Center.
  • NORTHERN LIGHTS restored.
  • 1970s New York City on the brink ~ DROP DEAD CITY opens tomorrow.
  • RAN, Akira Kurosowa’s final epic masterpiece, back on the big screen May 23.

Archive

wpDiscuz