"FATELESS" Touching tale of holocaust in Hungary editorial@hamhigh.co.uk 05 May 2006 The massacre of a large part of Hungarian Jewry is one of the great crimes of European history. "Fateless" tells part of the terrible story, based on an autobiographical novel by Imre Kertesz, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2002. It has been released in America, to much critical acclaim. The film centres on a nice curly-headed boy, Gyuri (Marcell Nagy). When the film opens, he, his family and friends in Budapest are wearing large yellow stars. His father has been ordered to a forced labour camp. Jewish boys on country buses are rounded up. They join the adults, who are told that they are being sent to a labour camp in Germany. In fact, they are taken by train to Auschwitz extermination camp, in Poland. The boy goes on briefly to Buchenwald and, then to Zeitz, a labour camp in Saxony-Anhalt. Much of the film is concerned with Zeitz - barracks lice-ridden and overcrowded, endless parades - reminiscent of POW films - cruelty, a hanging, hunger, humiliation, pain, illness, deaths. Some scenes are truly appalling. Some events are inexplicable, or, at least, unexplained. When Gyuri is liberated, he goes back to heavily-damaged and Russian-occupied Budapest. Surprisingly, he looks back on the camps through rose-tinted spectacles. This is one boy's story, rather than an account of the Holocaust in Hungary, so some background might be helpful. Although the policies of the Regent, Admiral Horthy, were anti-semitic, and there were some dreadful massacres, until Germany had occupied Hungary, in March 1944, he had resisted Hitler's demands to deport the Jews. After the occupation, Eichmann and the SS took charge. The transports to Auschwitz began on May 15 1944, two months later. By this time it had become inevitable that Germany would lose the war - the D-Day landings took place on 6 June - and the true nature of what was happening in Auschwitz had just been revealed. On July 6 1944, under international pressure, Admiral Horthy told the Germans that he had stopped the transports. Killings by right-wing Hungarians continued. In all, about 550,000 Hungarian Jews perished. There are some wonderful films in the Holocaust genre - including Liev Schreiber's "Everything Is Illuminated," released last year. On a small scale, and on a small budget, Schreiber's film poignantly evoked tragic events. "Fateless", with the largest budget ever for an Hungarian film, is not in the same class. It is not particularly well-made. The editing is odd and, in the first half of the film especially, there is much that seems mawkish and even inauthentic. Some characters are stereotypes, some actors seem inappropriate for their roles. But the tale it tells is so powerfully that it is impossible to leave the cinema unmoved. FATELESS (12A) (SORSTALANSAG) Director Lajos Koltai Starring Marcell Nagy 140 minutes Hungarian with subtitles