FATELESS

While it perhaps isn't the most moving of films, FATELESS shows the remarkable sensitivity of 14 year old Gyuri Koves, a Hungarian Jew in the German concentration camps in attempting to find logic is such an illogical situation.

Based on 2002 Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz' novel about a Hungarian Jewish boy's experience in the German camps and his attempts to reconcile himself with those experiences after the war, the film also written by the author concentrates much of its story in the camps themselves.

It certainly wasn't what I would call a high point to my Monday morning when I screened it. But it certainly wasn't a bad film.

In fact, dare I say, it was slightly mundane.

Yes, the images and events were incredibly horrific and inhumane, and it certainly captured the sufferring and disturbing events witnessed inside the camps. Reading the press kit, there were great pains in staying true to the events and not straying from facts as to preserve the reality. There was this utter sense of both hope and hopelessness to survive by those surrounding Gyuri, but the only thing that motivated Gyuri was his hunger. At least, cinematically, that's what it seemed.

The way the film was assembled seem more along the lines of fly-on-the-wall rather than emotional journey. Sure there are brief moments where the first person narration kicks in to offer the audience more insight from Gyuri, but in no way do I really feel anything from him other than pity.

I believe this film suffers from what most adaptations from book to screen suffer from; the book is a better read. Or rather, you would enjoy the film, had you read the book first ... although, I've never read the book, so I could still be sorely mistaken.

Photo Courtesy of THiNK FiLM