We're between VE day and VJ day, when the Nazis have been defeated but World War 2 is not yet quite concluded. And in a small Hungarian town, the villagers are getting themselves back to normal. But the arrival of two men in black, Orthodox Jews, means everybody is suddenly wary again. What do they plan, and what secrets are the villagers desperate to hide?
This is a little bit of a slow burn. The setup (the small frontier town menaced when two men in black arrive) is reminiscent of a classic hollywood western (the black-and-white photography only emphasises this), and the silence of the two jews compared to the desperate running around of the town people only gives this more accumulating power. I will say that the measured state of the opening (combined with going to an early morning session) meant that my mind did drift a little and I took over extended blinks. However the payoff as we find the true reason for the visitors, and the consequences of the building anxieties of the townpeople, really fires on all cylinders and makes this a film definitely worth catching.
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