{"id":31427,"date":"2017-11-02T11:33:17","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T15:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/?p=31427"},"modified":"2017-11-02T11:33:17","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T15:33:17","slug":"movie-review-secrets-from-the-past-may-interrupt-a-communitys-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/2017\/11\/02\/movie-review-secrets-from-the-past-may-interrupt-a-communitys-celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: Secrets from the past may interrupt a community’s celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Roger Costa<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

1945<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A train arrives at a small town’s station, as the city’s clerk prepares for one more day of activities among the community and at his pharmaceutical local business. There are big events all around them, including with the morning radio announcements, providing the latest on the postwar. At the center of the narrative, a wedding provokes excitement and anxiety through all the residents, but it’s the presence of many strangers that leads the story to its main subjects, corruption, secrets, lust and love. Since the opening sequence, the station’s agent is intrigued by the arrival of a Jewish father-and-son pair, warning everyone of the unusual visitors, who once lived there and had abandoned their properties due to war circumstances. On the other side, Russian troops take control of the area, intimidating locals and causing displacements. Some youngsters join the soldiers on their aggressive manners, somehow betraying their own people, while the adults are trying to figure out these outsiders intentions, right on such important day, when the clerk’s son is tying the knot. Winner of the Panorama Audience Award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, prolific Hungarian filmmaker Ferenc T\u00f6r\u00f6k brilliantly manipulates the viewer with continuous twists in this intensely crafted and suspenseful depiction of a community stirred up by buried secrets and the remains of war. His other attribute is the way he manages a bunch of characters’ emotions, in small but important pieces, developing a direct attachment to each one, gradually proving their essential part in the story: the very perceptive groom’s mother and her addictions; the uncertainty of both groom and bride; the agriculture workers claiming their rights and documents; the mysterious determination of the clerk and his suspicious actions; the journey of mourning of the Jewish pair, and so on. The actors demonstrate a superb chemistry and control of their roles, delivering convincingly charged performances, with no exceptions, but especially P\u00e9ter Rudolf as the fierce clerk. Superbly shot in thick, astonishing layers of B&W, easily putting Award-winner veteran cinematographer Elemer Ragalyi among this year’s most accomplished artists, the film’s depiction of the prior hours that lead to the wedding is utterly crafted with highly inventive techniques. Director T\u00f6r\u00f6k conceived a visually arresting, profound and unique investigation on disturbing secrets from the past.<\/p>\n

(A Menemsha Films Release. Runs November 1-14 at Film Forum, NYC.)<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Roger Costa 1945 A train arrives at a small town’s station, as the city’s clerk prepares for one more day of activities among the community and at his pharmaceutical local business. There are big events all around them, including with the morning radio announcements, providing the latest on the postwar. At the center of the narrative, a wedding provokes excitement and anxiety through all the residents, but it’s the presence of many strangers that leads the story to its main subjects, corruption, secrets, lust and love. Since the opening sequence, the station’s agent is intrigued by the arrival of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,16],"tags":[],"views":2592,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31431,"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31427\/revisions\/31431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brazilianpress.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}