Fateless

Hungarian director Lajos Koltai connects with his immaculate cinematic adaptation of concentration camp survivor Imre Kertesz’ novel about Gyura Koves a Hungarian Jewish 14-year-old boy who survives the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald death camps. With the assistance of talented cinematographer Gyula Pados, Koltai follows the surreal rhythms of bare survival in the camps through the dulled eyes and tortured body of a child. Marcell Nagy gives a nerve-shattering performance as Gyura Koves and leaves the viewer with a palpable understanding of survival in the face of Hitler’s evil. "Fateless" is an essential film in the canon of holocaust film because it vividly tracks the specific brand of hatred that torture and genocidal murder inures.

Not Rated. 140 mins. (A) (Five Stars)