Film Muser Rating : 4.5 / 5
Release Date : February 10, 2005
Running Time : 140 minutes
Watch Trailer

Fateless is about Gyorgy, a fourteen year old Hungarian boy living in Budapest. A typical teenager, Gyorgy is concerned more with his friends and girls than his Jewish heritage. During the random roundup of Jewish citizens in Hungary, Gyorgy finds himself on a train headed for Germany where he is finally is held at the Buchenwald concentration camp. While at the camp he experiences the horrors of Hitler’s Final Solution, and in what seems to be the final moments of his young life, his camp is liberated by the Allied forces. On returning to Hungary, Gyorgy finds that it was not as he remembered. Having lived through a life changing experience, he feels as though he being alienated by the Christian’s who turned the other cheek to his people as they were rounded up. He also has difficulty relating to his Jewish friends who managed to avoid the camps, now wishing to forget what had happened. Despite the hell he lived through in Buchenwald, Gyorgy can’t help but miss the sense of community that he was part of while there.

Fateless Directed by Lajos Koltai

I had seen the trailer for this film some time ago, and I just never seemed to get around to watching it. I’m glad I finally did because this film is so good for so many reasons. Director Lajos Koltai has created a movie that looks incredible. The colour is really pushed to brown, drab colours and creates the dreary mood of the holocaust. Shot after shot is looks like they are straight out of a photography book.

I also liked the idea of following a child through his experiences in the concentration camp, and ultimately his return home. Gyorgy doesn’t fully understand the reason for being in the camp, and you get the sense that he somehow feels that it is “normal”. When speaking of his experiences he continues to use the words like “naturally”. I thought that the scenes of Gyorgy’s return to Budapest were very strong. We see that only the survivors of the holocaust can truly understand the the experience.

Marcel Nagy puts in a solid performance as young Gyorgy. The transition he goes through from a carefree child to thoroughly defeated young man is portrayed so well. I did find that some of the dialog seemed to come off a little cheesy, mostly from the supporting cast. I’m fairly certain that this can be attributed to the translation from Hungarian to English.

Obviously this is a movie I highly recommend. Fateless goes one step further than so many other holocaust films. We get to see the the reinsertion of of the survivors back into society as they try to live with their experiences, while everyone around them is trying to forget. At one point when Gyorgy is asked what he feels upon his return, he gives a surprising answer – hatred. The way he says it you can’t help but think that he is directing it not only towards the Nazis, but also at his countrymen.

Memorable Scene
Upon arriving in Budapest, Gyorgy visits his neighbours. They are curious as to hear what happened in the camp. Gyorgy just sits their, unable to fathom how he could possibly explain his experiences. You also get the sense that his friends don’t really want to know what happened either.

Note: this movie is presented in Hungarian with English subtitles.