If you listen carefully to the score behind Lajos Koltai’s new Holocaust film, Fateless, you could hear the windpipe player catch his breath before completing his sombre melody. This is not an error of sound editing. The breath is there for the audience to feel the deeply personal struggle within the art.
As such, Fateless is a quietly disturbing portrait, not so much about the Holocaust as a catastrophic experience on the whole, but of the devastation inflicted upon the struggling individual’s spirit. Where previous Holocaust incarnations on film, like Schindler’s List and The Pianist, have delved into the general oppression of the Jews, Fateless operates on a more private level, offering a window into the soul of the helpless victims.
The film follows Gyuri, a 14-year-old Jewish boy who walks through the streets of Hungary unnerved by the fact that he has to keep the yellow Star of David on his sleeve visible. When another character questions why he doesn’t resent the hatred towards him, Gyuri responds: “But I don’t think it’s me they hate. Not me personally, just in general… The idea of a Jew.”
Having to force tears on his father’s last day in Hungary, Gyuri’s indifference to the ever-increasing danger stems from the acceptance that there is nothing that can be done to change the situation. He sees his grandmother’s feeble attempts to stand up and stop the chain of events end in nothing more than bitter collapse.
It is not till Gyuri himself almost willingly enters a concentration camp that he understands the fate he has accepted. Here we see through Gyuri’s doleful eyes how his emotional and mental state is methodically broken down by a system that has been engineered to destroy an entire civilization.
Koltai’s directorial debut is an astonishing feat of minimalist existentialism. The director resists grand moments of tragedy for the sake of portraying a more systematic cruelty on the individual psyche. His camera maintains the uncanny ability to not just focus on what’s happening around Gyuri, but to capture the turmoil within.
Koltai also utilizes an expressive palette of golden hues during Gyuri’s carefree days in Budapest, which eventually bleeds dry as the child approaches Auschwitz. Soon the colour scheme turns into cold blacks, whites, and grays. When Gyuri returns home and faces the hostility of an indifferent community that wishes to forget the events of the past, the colours return to the golden hues, but still manage to somehow feel like the chilly shades of gray.
Although the film may suffer from a running time that pushes towards 140 minutes, Koltai’s slow-burning work makes the journey worthwhile. He offers a new take on the genre that probes deeper than its predecessors, and feels so personal that the gasping breath heard on the score may be confused for your own.
Fateless
Directed by Lajos Koltai
Rating: VVVV
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