bandw (Spoilers) After a couple of brief flashbacks, the story begins in Hungary in August, 1944. To wait out the war in a safer environment, twelve-year-old twin brothers have been sent from a comfortable urban apartment to their grandmother's farm on the Austrian border. Harsh would be a kind description of granny--on their first night the boys are left outside in the cold until they work around the farm to earn any privileges, like being inside.This is not a war movie as such, but rather about the effects war has on people and the parlous moral climate that prevails. While there are some brief war-related scenes, like Jews being marched out of town and there being a nearby concentration camp, the emphasis is on what the boys are experiencing and how they react. During the course of the film, seeing what is going on around them, the boys implement a survivalist strategy by trying to toughen themselves physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Blackmail, theft, lying, and violent revenge are in their repertoire. War has turned decent, happy boys into amoral survivalists--their gradual transformation is skillfully presented. One cavil: the boys' physical appearance does not deteriorate as much as it would have in the time frame before they meet the priest's helper who helps care for them--they are never what one would call scruffy. If the movie could have provided smells it would have been distinctly more unpleasant than it is.Attention is paid to the complexity of human behavior. Stereotypes are avoided. The story goes in unexpected directions. Not all affirmative feeling is drained from the boys, they respond warmly to a Jewish cobbler who gives them a pair of shoes, and they befriend a neighbor girl, whom they call Harelip, who teaches them about theft. The boys participate in one instance of assisted suicide, out of compassion, and another that is problematic. By the end we see that the boys are capable of pretty much anything. The betrayal of the father in the final act is shocking. Or, given the rotten emotional and physical shape the father is in, as well as his status as an ex-soldier, was their act one of mercy? One of the most sympathetic characters is a German SS officer who takes to the boys, there being more than a hint of a sexual undercurrent in his liking of them. This officer runs counter to any preconceived image. He wears a neck brace that prevents him from turning his head. The officer's relationship with the boys is presented in a positive light--in fact he saves the boys from being beaten in an attack that could have resulted in their death. Is pedophilia always bad? Is what the officer did to stop the attack condemnable? An example of how the movie poses moral dilemmas.I confess that my knowledge of Hungarian history during the was is a little weak. I understood that Hungary fought on the side of the axis powers, so I was confused by how the Nazis were clearly an occupying force. A brief reading of Wikipedia on the matter is clarifying. One of the most poignant scenes has Harelip waving to the Russian "liberators" as they approach the village; they pick her up on their tank. This scene is brilliantly filmed as the tanks are initially seen in the distance and gradually approach the happy girl in real time. Later we see what the Russians did to Harelip.Independent of its absorbing story I was struck by what an accomplished piece of film making this is. I found the two boys (twins in real life) to be believable. Piroska Molnár as the grandmother, is perfectly cast. High production values prevail. I found the spare, edgy score to be highly effective.This movie had me questioning the morality of almost all actions. Viewed from one angle I could understand the motivations and even sympathize with what transpired. On the other hand, in a non-war setting the behaviors would be considered reprehensible. War complicates moral judgments. The use of atomic weapons at the end of WWII is still being debated over seventy years later.The twins are presented as being inseparable from birth, so I was puzzled by their decision to part ways at the end of the movie. They could see what was happening around them, for example having suffered a physical beating that no amount of their training could have prepared them for. Their father wanted out, so why didn't both boys decide to leave the country? I would like to see two sequels to this movie, movies that follow each of the two boys in the years after the war.

Kike Orellana In one of the most remarkable scenes of 'The Notebook', twin 12 year old brothers methodically, coldly trade punches. Each swings at the other, and then stands still, face expressionless, as he receives a slew of punches back. Gradually the punches are harder, and eventually they start using belts to ratchet up then pain threshold. They are children but this is no game: they are toughening up, physically and psychologically, to survive the war. They have realized that cuddling together and wishing the war away will not save them, and they better be prepared for hunger, pain, betrayal and daily humiliations. And survive they do, although they decide that in order to do so they must blackmail priests, steal from corpses, bully their grandmother and plant explosives in someone's kitchen. The director competently handles deep staging and the use of long lens, very apt for the emotional distance the story takes with regards to the acts it depicts. The film works in large part because of the performance of László Gyémánt and András Gyémánt, real life twins, who give a stupendously restrained, controlled performances, often consisting solely of intense stares and vengeful glances. Color is mostly bleached out, music is sparse and some of the best moments consist of static, unnervingly long shots. The film is set in a small village straddling the Austro-Hungarian border during world war two. But it is not particularly interested in providing context of the war, or of Hungary's terrible plight in it, or in Nazism or in any other details of the historical setting. So don't expect to learn much about world war 2 in this film as it is merely the backdrop to a story that is really about survival and what happens to children's moral compass during war.Hungarian films are their own sub-genre. Perhaps no other country has produced such consistently bleak films, soaked in pessimism and mostly focused on moral corruption and confusion. This small gem of a film is yet another example of this cinematic tradition. This is not quite at the level of masterpieces such as 'Come and See'or 'Time of the Drunken Horses', my two favorite films about childhood during wartime, but absolutely deserves to be seen, or, to be more precise, endured.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) The Notebook or "A nagy füzet" was given by their father to two young boys to write down everything they do or feel during the later years of World War II. The twins are given to their grandmother as the father has to go to war. Initially, they get beaten and verbally abused by the grandmother day in and day out, and also by many others of the townsfolk. That changes when they start hardening themselves in the rough times and stand up to the offenders. They even start building a real bond with the grandmother, although I was a bit surprised that it finally proved so strong that they preferred to stay there and not leave with their mother. At least the verbal abuse was still very common. It just felt like they didn't really mind anymore. While the child actors were fine, I thought Piroska Molnár playing the grandmother was the real highlight of the film acting-wise. I quite like Ulrich Matthes too and even if he was only in the early and final parts of the film, he did a very fine job. Especially watching him at the tense scenario near the end (clearly in the role of the victim and the boys being not really his sons anymore, but more flight "helpers" to him in crossing the border) of the film was edge-of-the-seat material.One thing I thought was done very well was how the boys were really portrayed as one soul in two bodies and really nothing except raw physical violence could separate them from each other. One factor that added a lot to this closeness was how we never were told their names, which would have characterized them as two individuals. I have to admit this may be possibly the film from 2013 (and I've seen really a lot) that was bar any humor remotely. I almost had to laugh at the kids beating each other to harden up or when they were rolling the injured grandmother through the snow. There was obviously nothing funny about that, but it was some kind of unintentional situational comedy or maybe it was just me wanting some kind of temporary relief from this very bleak piece of filmmaking. One thing I wasn't too fond of were the characters of Noethen and Tambrea and their strange homosexual(?) relationship. They probably had to include it as it was in the book, but I have to say I wouldn't have missed anything if they had done without it.Apart from that, we see the twins meet several characters, including two weirdly fascinating females who both face rather sad fates in the end, and their interactions are maybe the most interesting thing about this film. All in all, I'd recommend it. It's set during World War II, but I never really felt it was that war-related, or only as the setting. It's more about the fate of the boys and how they are dealing with the invisible threat that changed them completely.

jkbonner1 The Notebook begins as World War II is winding down. As an ally of Nazi Germany and part of the Axis Powers Hungary is on the losing end. The movie focuses on two young twin boys (András and László Gyémánt), whose names we never learn. They are 12 when the movie begins in the summer of 1944 and 13 when the movie ends in the summer of 1945.To ensure their safety their parents (Gyöngyvér Bognár and Ulrich Matthes) place them in the care of the woman's mother, who lives in the countryside running a small farm. The problem is the grandmother (Piroska Molnár) has not seen her daughter in 20 years and clearly has a very low opinion of her. At the end of the movie she is surprised her daughter (after dying in a shell explosion) even had a husband. She is a mean old woman who's rumored to have poisoned her husband and the movie supports this conjecture. The villagers call her "the Witch." At the beginning of the movie the boys hate her because she keeps calling them bastards and is very mean to them. It's clear her grudge against her daughter is carried over to her grandsons to whom she shows no love nor warmth.The boys transform from normal children into two human beings who have hardened themselves both physically and psychologically to deal with the rapidly deteriorating situation in Hungary. They nonchalantly watch both their mother and baby sister get blown to bits (largely their fault) and they cunningly watch their father die crossing a minefield (entirely their fault). No remorse is shown. At the end of the movie they go their separate ways, from being inseparable twins to purposely separating themselves.To say the boys morph into monsters is not quite accurate. By the end they bear a grudging respect for their grandmother and assist her in dying after she's had a second stroke. They avenge an old Jewish man who's shown kindness to them by blowing the face off a pretty maid who turned him in to the authorities. So it's difficult to say that they've gone all the way from innocent boys to out-and-out psychopaths.The movie makes it clear the boys' transformation stems from the barbarous and irrational ordeal they are forced to endure from other people and from the War itself. They have had to survive the fall of Hungary. The German Army has pulled out as represented by the Waffen SS German Officer who departs abruptly and who's shown a homosexual interest in them. The Hungarian Army has fallen into tatters as represented by the Hungarian soldier the boys stumble upon frozen and starved to death. And the Soviet Army is rolling into Hungary raping any girl or woman they can get their hands on, like Hairlip (Orsolya Tóth). About the Soviets there's a caption that says: Welcome the liberators. They've come to take all you own. When a priest is surprised that the twins know their Ten Commandments, one of the boys comments: The Fifth Commandment says Thou Shalt Not Kill. But everyone kills.The Notebook could have used a brief introductory prologue to familiarize the viewer in more depth with the political context. Example: By 1944 the Second World War was rapidly being lost by the Axis Powers and Hungary, as an ally of the Axis Powers represented chiefly by Nazi Germany, was on the losing side. Several times in 1944 the Hungarian dictator, Admiral Horthy, sought to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies to pull Hungary out of the war but was unsuccessful. Under the direct orders of Adolf Hitler, in the autumn of 1944 the German Army (Wehrmacht) and the Waffen SS took over full control of the conduct of the war in Hungary but by the winter of 1945 Budapest, the capital of Hungary, surrendered to the rapidly advancing Soviet forces and the government of Hungary collapsed in total defeat.The Notebook is also a truly gripping and powerful movie, but definitely not for those who prefer to avoid the realities of life and who like nice, cheery, feel-good stories. Also not for those who like blow-'em-ups/shoot-'em-ups. Many of the scenes are very brutal and very intense. This movie will make you ponder in depth the inhumanity and abject cruelty some humans do to other humans. And it's still going on out there in spades in many parts of the world. The twin boys in The Notebook were not adults. The horrors of war twisted their minds forever. I hope this movie will make us think more deeply about the effect war can have on people―physically, psychologically, and emotionally―and how war can be stopped.The acting was well done and convincing and the cinematography contributed to the feel of Hungary at that time. This movie deserves to be watched.I'll end my review by saying what I said as a wrap-up in 12 Years A Slave. It's not for everyone.9/10PS: I saw this movie at the Hungarian Film Festival held at the Laemmle NoHo 7 on Lankershim Blvd in North Hollywood, California USA.