Fateless

Adapting the semi-autobiographical novel from a Holocaust survivor, Fateless was sure to remind people of other films depicting this atrocity. It is, after all, the same historical event. However, the perspective is rather different. The details Gyuri remembers are details that other films don’t recall– the lie about his age that spares him the gas chambers, the extra rations he got by hiding his bunkmate’s death, and the last image of the camp he has as he’s carried over the shoulder. All the details combined recreates the uncertainty and lack of control that people like Gyuri have faced, both during the war and after. Fateless remembers how the world couldn’t make it right.

A Hungarian youth comes of age at Buchenwald during World War II. György Köves is 14, the son of a merchant who's sent to a forced labor camp. After his father's departure, György gets a job at a brickyard; his bus is stopped and its Jewish occupants sent to camps. There, György find camaraderie, suffering, cruelty, illness, and death. He hears advice on preserving one's dignity and self-esteem. He discovers hatred. If he does survive and returns to Budapest, what will he find? What is natural; what is it to be a Jew? Sepia, black and white, and color alternate to shade the mood.