In "The best years of our lives" (William Wyler) a couple of soldiers return home after the Second World War. They discover that the civil society is not eagerly awaiting them.
In "Homecoming 1945" not soldiers but Jews that have survived the concentration camps return. Also these Jews are not very welcome. Some people in the village have actively participated in their deportation (guilt) while others have taken their properties and are afraid that they will ask them back (greed).
The way in which the story is told has some similarities with "High noon" (1952, Fred Zinnemann). In that film a dreaded criminal will arive by train and the town pins all its hopes on the sheriff. In "Homecoming 1945" the Jews also arrive by train and the village has nothing to expect from the head of the municipality, because he is as corrupted as the average villager.
All the Jews are doing in the whole film is arriving by train, loading their luggage on a carriage and walking behind this carriage through the village. It is enough to cause a lot of unrest.
There are no shocking images in "Homecoming 1945" as there are in "Son of Saul" (2015, Laszlo Nemes), another Hungarian movie about the Second World War from a couple of years earlier. Some may find this way of treating the Second World War too sterile but in my opinion images don't have to be shocking to be disturbing.
In "Homecoming 1945" not soldiers but Jews that have survived the concentration camps return. Also these Jews are not very welcome. Some people in the village have actively participated in their deportation (guilt) while others have taken their properties and are afraid that they will ask them back (greed).
The way in which the story is told has some similarities with "High noon" (1952, Fred Zinnemann). In that film a dreaded criminal will arive by train and the town pins all its hopes on the sheriff. In "Homecoming 1945" the Jews also arrive by train and the village has nothing to expect from the head of the municipality, because he is as corrupted as the average villager.
All the Jews are doing in the whole film is arriving by train, loading their luggage on a carriage and walking behind this carriage through the village. It is enough to cause a lot of unrest.
There are no shocking images in "Homecoming 1945" as there are in "Son of Saul" (2015, Laszlo Nemes), another Hungarian movie about the Second World War from a couple of years earlier. Some may find this way of treating the Second World War too sterile but in my opinion images don't have to be shocking to be disturbing.