Aqueles Que Ficaram

While many holocaust survivors openly express rage and uncontrolled bitterness towards their persecutors, other survivors display only an emotional deadness and a pervasive feeling of being alone and scared. In the movie "Fateless," Gyuri, a young man sent to Buchenwald, moves from a childlike innocence to world-weariness in the span of one year. When he comes home, he feels more alone than he did at the camp and even expresses a sort of homesickness for the camaraderie he felt. As a disfigured Holocaust survivor in Christian Petzold's "Phoenix," Nina Hoss' shattered look, repressed emotions, and shaky voice feel so natural that her gradual awakening to life epitomizes a Phoenix rising from the ashes.

Hungary's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards, Barnabás Tóth's ("Camembert Rose") Those Who Remained (Akik maradtak) asks us to rethink our idea of what liberation meant to those just released from the camps. Based on the 2004 novel of the same name by Zsuzsa F. Varkonyi and set in Budapest between 1948 and 1953, the suffering of the Holocaust years are deeply etched on the face of Doctor Aládar (Aldo) Körner (Károly Hajduk, "One Day"), a slender, gaunt man of about forty who is going through the motions of his Ob-Gyn practice at a Budapest hospital, but the look in his eyes cannot hide the trauma of his wife's death and that of his two young boys.

Coming from the Israelite Community Orphanage, Klára (Abigél Szõke, "X - The eXploited"), a mature-looking 16-year-old girl, sees Dr. Körner, for a gynecological exam to find out why her puberty has come so late. At first, angry, fearful, and wound into a tight knot, when she reaches out and suddenly embraces the doctor, it is clear that she is seeking more than an exam but a respite from her desperate loneliness. Outspoken in her disdain for her classmates at school and her great-aunt Olgi (Mari Nagy, "Budapest Noir") with whom she lives, Klára only begins to reveal her repressed humanity when Aldo responds to her like a fellow human being in pain, not a wounded animal.

Bringing the film to life with her tremendously affecting performance, Szõke refuses to return to Olgi even though she loves her and wants her to be happy. Instead, she moves in with Aldo who acts as a foster father, sharing custody with her aunt. He makes the rules, however, and is strict about physical contact, especially when she crawls into bed with him at night. Gradually, both open up though to each other. They talk about God, her parents, the sister she feels guilty about not being able to save from death, and, in a tender scene, he shares with her his photo album from before the war.

Though Aldo strictly adheres to the rules of propriety, their developing relationship raises some eyebrows, and the interest of Soviet operatives. Amidst talk of a Soviet crackdown on personal freedoms, Aldo and Klára do their best to be discreet, but it does not prevent others from gossiping. In one instance, after being seen in a park laying her head on Aldo's lap, Klára is defiant when interrogated by a Communist official. Similarly, Pista (Andor Lukáts, "The Whiskey Bandit"), Aldo's colleague at work, says that people have disappeared during the night and tells him that he has joined the Communist Party and has been asked to inform on him.

Those Who Remained is an intimate look at two damaged souls who have been bruised and shaken by life but are now ready to begin the reconstruction of their life, a process which will, in Percy Bysshe Shelley's phrase "lift the veil from the hidden beauty of the world." Knowing that any expression of the love they feel for each other will push the boundaries of what is considered acceptable, both realize that their protestations of innocence will not be enough to keep them safe, and that they must now reach out to others, bringing solace and joy in a world in dire need of both.

Deeply touched me. I cant sleep this night. This man and young women were so good, maybe the best acting in hungarian movie ever. The story is very sad, but full with real emotions, real life.

I found this to be a superb movie, in content, script, acting, music, so many ways. Most of all it simply grabbed me by the heart.

The two main characters Klara and Aldo are the only surviving members of their respective families not long after WW II and living in Hungary. Where the communists had taken over.

She is 16 and very out of sorts which is understandable. She has no one and thinks she might be somehow reunited with her parents. He is 45 and alone as his wife and two sons didn't survive and he somehow survived a concentration camp alone.

Some may say the story is unrealistic, but to me that really didn't matter. With so many movies about love lost due to war, it is heartwarming to see a movie about two lost souls finding comfort with each other, albeit in an awkward situation. Maybe that couldn't have happened at that place and that time, but it doesn't matter as this is a movie and everything felt very real to me.

Any shortcomings pointed out by others can be overcome with the superb acting of the main characters as played by Abigel Szoke and Karoly Hajduk. I could especially relate to her portayal of Klara as she would cling to him, having been left with an aunt and feeling lost and forgotten.

It was in no way easy for them to regain any kind of love in their life after they had lost their entire families. But how nice to watch a film about new kinds of love forming slowly over time, even if in a difficult post-war country to be in.

Just back from seeing this extraordinary movie at the Wilmette Theater: 'Those Who Remained'.

Set in 1948 Budapest. Everyone still stunned by the war and its aftermath.

A kind doctor befriends a 14 year old girl. Both camp survivors. They are those who were left at war's end. They are surrounded by ghosts. The little girl refuses to accept death. They aren't 'were' they 'are'. Lives that go on with holes as large as elephants. Black holes that suck all of life down into nothingness. Except for the human spirit in everyone. That life smashed, mutilated, damaged, despairing goes on. Love can be felt and to be loved regained. So powerful, so honest and true.

Makes you think...how did those who lived...live?

Brilliant cast. Everyone a living individual. The doctor slowly comes into the light. The girl, angry, furious, refusing to accept what happened to her...saved by human touch. Saved by experiencing, well, fun.

Sad beyond belief in parts, but wonderful in most others.

I gave the movie 6/10 for the work by the wonderful actors. But this movie verges on the ridiculous. It is an excellent theme-traumatized victims of the Holocaust forming a new family to help each other heal-but it is wildly inaccurate about history.

At the end of WWII, Budapest was a bombed-out wreck. Yet everywhere here, it is in fine shape, and everyone has new clothes and shiny apartments. One character talks about the wedding they were planning for the April, 1945... which was during the siege of Budapest when everyone was starving!

Then there are the unbelievable ways the doctor acts with the girl right from the start of the relationship. Propriety is a much bigger issue in Central Europe in the middle of the 20th Century. The arrangement they made would have been impossible. Only the teachers at the school seem to care!

Multiple threats in the movie just fade away to nothing as if the screenwriters forgot.

Considering the wonderful cast and potential, this movie is terribly frustrating.