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Survival and the hardships of war are explored from a very specific and thought-provoking perspective in János Szász’ “The Notebook.” A pair of twins in Hungary during World War II is left to fend for themselves when their parents must move away escaping prosecution. Their hateful grandmother, who is supposed to care for them, forces them to work tirelessly and shows no compassion despite their young age. Progressively, they desensitize themselves by enduring pain, starvation and getting rid of any memories from their past life, including their mother. Szász’ savagely beautiful film delivers bleakness enhance with a touch of fantasy, but always aware of the dark world in which his characters inhabit. Heartbreakingly poetic and visually elegant, “The Notebook,” based on Agota Kristof’s novel Le grand cahier, is one of the most daring European films of the year. The film was Hungary’s Official Oscar Submission last year and it made it to the final 9-film-shortli out of 76 titles submitted.

Szász kindly talked to us from Hungary about the performances in his film, the origin story of the project, and the hint of hope underneath the darkness

Read More: Review "The Notebook" (Le grand cahier)

Carlos Aguilar: Tell me about the origin of the project, where you interested in the novel beforehand?

János Szász: “The Notebook” is a very old story. 15 years ago, the first time I read the book I fell in love with it and I immediately wanted to take the rights, everyone laughed at me for that. Getting the rights was very difficult because they were taken for 15 years, and many directors wanted to make it into a movie. I had made the short “The Witman Boys,” which is also a story about two very young souls, in a way I wanted to make another film in this genre. I was in the queue to get the rights.

Finally, approximately four or five years ago I had the fortune of meeting the author Agota Kristof. Every character in the novel comes from memories of her life. In 1956, during the anti-communist revolution, she got pregnant. She and her family had to leave Hungary. She didn’t want to leave because she loved this country. It was a very dark time in her life, because she didn’t want to be a deserter, as she would say. She died two years before we began to shoot the film. She was a wonderful person. We became very close. She was someone who could not lie. She didn’t want to lie about her life. She didn’t want to lie about how hard it was for her and her brothers. She told me it was very painful to write this book.

Aguilar: Both twins, László Gyémánt and András Gyémánt, deliver marvelous performances. They are unflinching and naturalistic throughout. Was it a difficult task for you to elicit this from the young boys?

János Szász: To tell you the truth, it was really easy [Laughs]. We found these two kids in a very small village in the south of Hungary living in poverty. They had been living a life that was not very pleasant. They lived with their grandmother and they had no money. They, despite being children, had to work everyday. When I visited them I started telling them about the war and how hard life is, etc. They were just laughing at my face. They told me, “Janos, we know exactly how hard life is.” They had their own similar experiences, so what you feel when you see them in the film comes from their past. They were able to base the story on those experiences. For the scenes where they beat each other, we talked to Andras, and it was clear that this sort of thing has happened in their lives.

There were difficulties at times. Imagine two boys from the countryside who suddenly find themselves shooting a film. They have their own van, everybody loves them, but it’s only for 50 days of shooting. Suddenly it stops, and it was hard for them. We couldn’t take them back to where we found them like if they were props. I’m very happy that we still have a very good relationship and to know that they are in a college in Budapest. They have a chance to try to have a better life now. On set, what was difficult was that, even though their presence is strong, they were two amateurs. All the other actors are professionals, and it was hard for them to achieve this kind of simplicity. As a director, my job was to help those actors be simple, not to do much.

Aguilar: The film has a specific visuals aesthetic. It is realist, but also ventures into a sort of dark fairytale. How did you achieve this particular atmosphere?

János Szász: Christian Berger was our cinematographer. He is great. He has worked in films like “The White Ribbon.” First off, this is an adaptation, and I, Janos, as the one adapting, have to think about a lot of things. In the book there are no names for the boys and the voice is always in plural, “we decided” or “we did…” I told Christian that it was very important to find this “We.” Therefore, we chose to shoot the film in cinemascope and to always have these two guys together in every frame.

They are always together, but at the end we notice this erosion in their relationship. I did think of it as a dark fairytale, but it was very hard to make a war movie without showing war. There is abuse and violence, but I think my intention to make a cold fairytale came across. I didn’t want to get too close to things, I wanted visual distance, that’s why I was knocking on Christian’s door. I wanted to find someone who doesn’t want to get too close, someone who doesn’t want to provoke your emotions. He is a master at keeping that distance, while still taking the audience close to the story.

Aguilar: The notebook in the story seems to represent an alternative reality for these two boys. What are your though on the role it plays?

János Szász: The notebook is the only place where they are honest. It is like a priest, like a confessional for these two kids. It is a place for fantasy, that’s why I decided not to use only the words but to bring the notebook to life. It is also a very secretive tunnel into the truth. If you are Catholic, every Sunday you’d go to church and talk to the priest, but in the story the priest is not a person. This fairytale territory represents freedom.

Aguilar: In order to survive the twins desensitize themselves, they try to forget their loved ones to become stronger. Where you ever concerned of how bleak or how dark you could make the film? I think there is a compelling sense of unyielding courage to your approach.

János Szász: I think the novel is much more darker. For me it is not that dark because it is the story about two boys who are taken to live with their unknown grandmother. The mother tells them they must continue learning, but that above all they must survive. These are two good boys, and they listen to their mother. They will continue learning, but the subject has changed, the subject now is the war. They are learning how to survive it. They are gaining skills, but even if they come out physically alive, do they survive the war mentally? They need to be strong, they need to be able not to eat for days, and they need to forget about emotions. To have emotions during the war would be like committing suicide for them. They have a new moral code, which during the war is not so black and white. You can’t really judge their actions towards other people. Even with their grandmother, there is hatred there, but under the skin of that hatred one can see a special type of love. The bleakness is not so black and white.

Aguilar: Despite all the events and situations these two boys must go through, do you think there is a place for hope in their journey?

János Szász: Personally I think there is a lot of hope in the story. They still preserve a certain kind of innocence. They have gone through terrible things, but they had no choice but to do those things. Eventually, they must part and separate, but this represents hope. This is their only hope. One of them goes west, just like the author Agota Kristof, and the other stays in Hungary. This is their hope for a new life. You must know that this based on the first book of a tetralogy. In the second part they return and they reconnect.

"The Notebook" opens today in NYC at the Quad Cinema and in L.A. at the Laemmle Royal in Santa Monica...

The Notebook (Le grand cahier) (A nagy füzet) Sony Pictures Classics Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes Grade: A- Director: János Szász Screenplay: Agota Kristof, András Szekér, Tom Abrams – adapted from Agota Kristof’s novel (see below) Cast: András Gyémánt, Gyöngyvér Bognár, László Gyémánt, Piroska Molnár, András Réthelyi, Ulrich Matthes Screened at: Sony, NYC, 8/13/14 Opens: August 29, 2014 In his 1954 dystopian novel “Lord of the Flies,” William Golding creates a world of British boys as sole inhabitants of an island without adult authorities. They try to govern themselves but end up with disaster. Simply put, the youngsters become barbarians. In “The Notebook,” we discover [ Read More ]

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The Notebook

Written by Tom Abrams, András Szekér and János Szász

Directed by János Szász

Hungary/Germany/Austria/France, 2013

Set in a small border village over the course of World War II, Hungarian curio The Notebook is unlike any war film you’ve ever seen. Its central characters are twin boys, named only in the credits as One (András Gyémánt) and Other (László Gyémánt), who think and act as a single person. At the beginning of the film, their parents take them away from their luxurious city apartment, fearing that identical twins would be too conspicuous in wartime. They are sent to live with their mean-spirited Grandmother (Piroska Molnár), despite the fact that she has unequivocally fallen out with their mother and is suspected of murdering her husband. The only instructions given to them are to keep up with their studies and record everything that happens in a notebook. It...

Best Foreign Language Film Oscar 2014 semi-finalists (photo: ‘Two Lives,’ with Liv Ullmann and Julia Bache-Wiig) Out of 76 submissions, nine movies have been selected as semi-finalists for the 2014 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. Listed in alphabetical order by country, the films are: Belgium, The Broken Circle Breakdown, Felix van Groeningen, director. Best Actress European Film Award winner Veerle Baetens and Johan Heldenbergh star as a couple whose love is put to the test after their daughter falls seriously ill. Bosnia and Herzegovina, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker / Epizoda u zivotu beraca zeljeza, Danis Tanovic, director. Set in Bosnia’s Roma (gypsy) community and based on real-life events, this 2013 Berlin Film Festival Grand Prix winner stars Berlin’s Best Actor Nazif Mujic as a scrap-metal collector and salesman desperately trying to save the life of his wife, who has been denied medical assistance because she lacks health insurance.

The Notebook, Hungary''s Submission for the Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. U.S. : None Yet. International Sales Agent: Beta Cinema

Survival is defined as the ability to remain alive and persevere through all the obstacles that can halt one’ existence. It could be said that most of the endeavors an individual undertakes are solely to prolong life. During wartime, this task becomes exponentially more difficult and requires the skills, both mental and physical, to carry on as inhumane atrocities become quotidian occurrences. Perhaps the most horrendous case in history is the social decay that prevailed during World War II, more prominently in countries under Nazi control, which completely dehumanized those targeted by the Reich as well as the bystanders forced to reevaluate the value of a person’s life, rendering many as subhuman. In his ambitious and terrific film The Notebook, director János Szász approaches this instinctive resilience by way of an unbreakable bond between two twin brothers and their assertiveness to persist and overcome the extreme austerity they encounter.

Considering his twin sons a conspicuous liability, a Hungarian soldier and his wife agree they must hide them with their grandmother in a remote village on the outskirts of the country. Before parting with them, the father entrusts them with a mission, he provides them with a notebook in which they must write an account of everything that happens to them. Taking this assignment to heart, the boys (played by András Gyémánt and László Gyémánt) begin to write about their experiences, not only in text but also with visuals, as a scrapbook of sorts. Spiteful due to her daughter’s abandonment, the grandmother (Piroska Molnár) refuses to care for the children. She refers to them as bastards, hits them, and treats them cruelly even as they work for her around her farm. The twins understand that hardships will only worsen and they must be prepared. As instructed by their mother, they keep their studies up aided by an old encyclopedia and a bible, yet, the greatest lessons come from their terrible fate. Crushing any trace of childish mentality or oversensitivity by means of pain, the boys begin to train themselves to bear incredible suffering. They fight each other to increase their tolerance to physical pain, they starve to be ready when winter hits, and they deny themselves any emotion towards their mother’s letters.

Along the way they meet varied characters that test their compassion, and others who shatter any remains of innocence: a friendly Nazi officer that ends up saving their lives, to a Jewish shoemaker who generously gives them boots, a sexually deviant priest, a disfigured thief, and a flirtatious xenophobic woman. Eventually the malevolent grandmother comprehends the pair are the only reason she is still alive and warms up to them, although she never verbalizes it. When the boys’ parents finally return for them, they are not the same. Their perception of family is now less romanticized. Having their fraternal love as only source of reassurance, their parents have now become a burden in their goal to survive.

In what is the most psychologically intriguing element of the story, the twins undergo a self-imposed journey to desensitize themselves and by doing so their moral convictions must adapt to the situations with which they are confronted. They cannot afford to second-guess their illicit practices to obtain food or other much needed supplies. For them, there is logic in their every move, which is still dictated by the convictions imposed by their parents. Righteously they believe evil must be punished, and they are sympathetic towards those who, like them, are trying not to perish. Disturbingly comfortable with killing animals, their pragmatism allows them to see murder simultaneously as a benevolent act of kindness for those unfit to keep going, and as the ultimate tactic to protect themselves. After mastering all sorts of emotional and bodily deprivation, their only weakness becomes their dependence on each other. András and László Gyémánt give equally courageous performances entirely removing any expression of joy from their faces. It is a saddening bravery that propels them to behave in such a cold-hearted manner. Contained, vigilant, and ferocious against the world these young actors defy their age and truly astound in their first screen appearance.

With an immaculate production the film is visually captivating. Photographing a bleak rural charm Christian Berger constructs an elegant depiction of a terrible time that in spite of the turmoil around, emphasizes the boys’ experiences via their drawings, souvenirs, and mismatched pictures which becomes their collective, truthful, memory. Deserving of even greater accolade is director János Szász who elicits spectacularly raw performances out of his entire cast, and whose vision creates a film that provides powerful and honest insight into a passage of history which has been revised repeatedly. As a world-class filmmaker he seeks to explore humanity through his art, delivering cinematic philosophy. Savagely beautiful, The Notebook can be summarized as a darkly poetic period piece about children for adults.

Read more about all the 76 Best Foreign Language Film Submission for the 2014 Academy Awards...