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Marcell Nagy, Áron Dimény, Andras M. Kecskes, Joszef Gyabronka, Endre Harkanyi ... see more see more... , Daniel Craig , János Bán , Bela Dora , Bálint Péntek , Dani Szabo , Zsolt Der , Judit Schell , Adam Rajhona , György Barkó , Péter Fancsikai , Peter Vida , Tibor Mertz

One young man's devastating voyage through the Holocaust sets the stage for this powerful drama. Gyorgy "Gyurka" Koves (Marcell Nagy) is a 14-year-old Jewish boy living in Hungary when the Nazi pogrom... read more read more...s begin sweeping through the country. Gyura's father (Janos Ban) has his business taken away from him not long before he's taken away to a concentration camp, and as he's led away, Gyura agrees to his father's request to look after his stepmother while he's gone. However, Gyurka takes a bus rather than the train to work the following morning, believing it to be safer, but before it can reach its destination, police stop the vehicle and take the Jewish passengers into custody. Gyurka is sent to Auschwitz, but is later transferred to Buchenwald, and finally to Zeitz; at each stop the teenager is witness to greater and greater horrors, as different varieties of torture and violence are introduced with each passing day, until his emotions begin to wear away. When American troops finally liberate Zeitz, Gyurka has been shocked into a placid serenity, and when he returns to the wreckage that is Budapest, his ravaged body and ghostly calm go mostly overlooked by the other survivors attempting to rebuild. Sorstalansag (aka Fateless) was adapted from a novel by Imre Kertesz, a Nobel Prize-winning author who is himself a survivor of the Nazi death camps. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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64% liked it

13,674 ratings

Critics

92% liked it

63 critics

R, 2 hr. 16 min.

Directed by: Lajos Koltai

Release Date: January 6, 2006

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DVD Release Date: May 9, 2006

Stats: 287 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (287)

  • itsjustme2004
    November 1, 2010
    itsjustme2004
    This film is hard to watch, but the performances are profound and the cinematography is breath taking. The depths of suffering seem to be limitless, and thiis film portrays that brilliantly. I do not recommend this film for children. It is a mature work that is completely disturb... read moreing. While similar films capitalize on the Holocaust brutality, this is a different perspective regarding the erosive effects of the endless, dehumanizing routine upon the psyche. How anyone was able to survive one of these camps, then return to normal society, is beyond me.
  • danperry17
    May 14, 2007
    danperry17
    There can be beauty anywhere - even in the Nazi death camps. This film is filled with touching moments, some of the rawest I've seen in film, and is an interesting take on the coming-of-age story: what if you spent your teens in a concentration camp? How would you look back on it?
  • SarahG1988
    October 8, 2006
    SarahG1988
    it's not every day I see a hungarian film nor have I ever heard of an Hungarian film but this film will certainly make me find more Hungarian films.

    This is a film which probably would not be done in a similar way in an English peaking film. Many of the scenes where certainly ... read moresomething I haven't seen before in an english speaking film, perhaps even a Hollywood movie.

    Perhaps telling from a boy's point of view is why I belive it's such a special piece of cinema, unlike something I've ever seen.
  • wbgoose13
    December 21, 2006
    wbgoose13
    The cinematography's warm, the characters cold, and the territory familiar.
  • mvieaddict
    September 13, 2009
    mvieaddict
    Image and video hosting by TinyPic for disturbing images, nudity, language.

    I have seen many movies about Holocaust, but this Hungarian one, Fateless is quite impress... read moreive.Making a Holocaust movie is a challenge, because the director must struggle to maintain the scenes powerful, and not to be comparing with other Holocaust movies. Fateless, had this, and it showed us that we who were not there in the camps, can never imagine how that was like. It had little dialogue, but still it was a story that was watchable and had an affect on the viewer.
  • alienmindtrick
    December 29, 2009
    alienmindtrick
    The highest compliment that I could give this film would be to call it the Hungarian 'Schindler's List'. Less showy or graphic than Spielberg's classic, 'Fateless' shows the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald through the eyes of a young Hungarian Jew, György Köves, pla... read moreyed so very well by Marcell Nagy. Köves detachment from the reality of the unrelenting cold, hunger, pain, and sadistic treatment comes across as confusion and disbelief. Yet, he slogs along, does what he's told by his Ukrainian friend, and makes it through to the American liberation. He survived the concentration camps remembering not only the suffering and death, but small moments of peace, like his favorite time of evening when supper was provided. Even though he was taken away at 14 and placed in the camps, upon his return home, his fellow Hungarians treat him with contempt. The monochromatic imagery reminds me of visits to Dachau, a place that seems forgotten by color and sunlight. You'll remember the film, but mainly you'll remember Marcell Nagy's incredible performance.
  • crafty6459
    June 8, 2007
    crafty6459
    This movie is absolutely amazing in both its storyline as well as its cinematography...one of the best movies I have ever seen

View All Fateless Reviews

Critic Reviews

Ty Burr
June 2, 2006
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

Fateless looks man's inhumanity to man square in the eye and pronounces it standard operating procedure, and that may be the greater horror. Full Review

Kerry Lengel
April 20, 2006
Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic

A reflection of how its main character comes to experience reality, as one small moment between what came before and whatever horror or happiness is yet to come. Full Review

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
March 25, 2006
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Many of the images in Fateless are familiar, but they're presented so unsparingly, so uncloaked by emotion, they become freshly potent. Full Review

Bruce Westbrook
March 24, 2006
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle

Epic in scope and imagery, the film is a haunting look at mankind's capacity for inhumanity, as well as survival. Full Review

Michael Wilmington
March 18, 2006
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

The film is on a level just slightly below Schindler's List and The Pianist, and only because Koltai is a less powerful, practiced director than either Steven Spielberg or Roman Polanski. Full Review

John Monaghan
March 10, 2006
John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press

With its first-person approach, Fateless joins other classic films about the Holocaust (Shoah, Schindler's List) by vividly portraying an event that can seem remote as the number of eyewitnesses shrin... Full Review

Ruthe Stein
February 24, 2006
Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle

Fateless accomplishes the near impossible, bringing a fresh perspective to a horrific subject about which a multitude of films already have been made. Full Review

Geoff Pevere
February 3, 2006
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

Koltai, a veteran cinematographer whose credits include more than a dozen movies by István Szabó (Mephisto, Sunshine), has managed something near miraculous with this hypnotically paced, lyrically dow... Full Review

Rick Groen
February 3, 2006
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail

Not only do the scenes set during the war develop a cumulative emotional power, but those in the war's immediate aftermath give us a glimpse into a truth seldom explored -- a truth that only a survivo... Full Review

Ann Hornaday
February 2, 2006
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

Fateless is an extraordinary film, not just for its harrowing attention to detail of life within the concentration camps, but for the equal place of privilege it gives to life before and after World W... Full Review

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