A father (Ivan Angelus) and son (Marcell Nagy), Jews, dressed in black jackets and trousers, black hats and white shirts with the son also wearing a black tie get off a train in a small Hungary town. With them are 2 heavy crates which might hold perfumes and cosmetics or worse. Hiring a man with a horse and flatbed to carry the crates they walk slowly along it going into town, giving the trainmaster (Istvan Znamenak) time enough to announce “Jew have arrived” and the word is spread with whispers and speculation why they have come back.

Directed by Ferenc Torok, who also wrote the screenplay with Gabor T. Szanto, we meet the villagers, many who have something to fear from the Jews and what they helped do to them.

We meet Istvan Szentes, owner of a prosperous drugstore, shaving in the morning getting ready for the marriage of his son, Bence Tasnadi, to Dora Sztarenki, who at one time was engaged to Tamas Szabo Kimmel who had gone off to war to come back to find out that she preferred the security that Tasnadi can offer but still will have sex with Kimmel. Szentes’s wife, Eszter Nagy-Kalozy, is addicted to drugs and seems the most afraid of what the Jews can do to her and her life.

In a black and white film running 91 minutes Angelus and Nagy say very little, and except for walking, do very little, but their presence disturbs everyone in the town, including the town drunk Jozsef Szarvas and the town clerk Peter Rudolf.

“1945” is a different, sort of ‘strange’ film, yet at heart seems like an old Western though no guns and no good guys in white hats.

I usually complain about films being too long but “1945” could have used another 10-15 minutes for explanations even though it still seemed to move slow at times.

Movie trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWm0uu_zun8