Directed by Ferenc Török
Hungary | 2017 | Fiction | 91 min | Hungarian w/English subtitles
Film Source: Menemsha
Sponsor: Barbara McGrew
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, a village in Hungary grapples with its collective conscience when two Orthodox Jewish men arrive on the morning train. Set on the wedding day of the town clerk’s son, Ferenc Török’s gripping drama deals with a seldom-told aspect of European history: how the properties of deported Hungarian Jews were seized by gentiles during the Holocaust through shady deed transfers. Shot in crisp widescreen black and white, 1945 recalls John Sturges’ innovative 1955 “modern Western” Bad Day at Black Rock in its use of suspenseful genre traditions to tell a postwar story of the shared guilt and complicity of an entire community. ~LB