Adam Rajhona Movies

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 pogroms 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

The fortunes of a family of Hungarian Jews are followed over the course of nearly 150 years in this epic historical drama, with leading man Ralph Fiennes playing three different roles. The story begins in the late 18th century, as Aaron and Josefa Sonnenschein (the name means "Sunshine" in German) die in an explosion while making an herb tonic for sale in their village. Their son Emmanuel (David de Keyser), the only survivor of the tragedy, travels to Budapest, carrying the recipe for the medicine with him. He's able to parlay the formula into a successful business, and Emmanuel and his wife Rose (Miriam Margolyes) raise two sons, Ignatz (Ralph Fiennes), who becomes a successful lawyer, and hot-tempered Gustave (James Frain). The Sonnenscheins also make room in their home for Valerie (Jennifer Ehle), but Emmanuel and Rose become furious when Valerie becomes romantically involved with Ignatz. Eventually, Valerie and Ignatz raise two children, Istvan (Mark Strong) and Adam (Ralph Fiennes), and the family changes its name to Sors in hopes of avoiding the anti-Semitism sweeping Europe. In time, Adam goes so far as to convert to Catholicism, and he marries another Catholic, Hannah (Molly Parker). He soon begins an affair with his brother's wife, Greta (Rachel Weisz), who is unable to persuade Adam to leave as the Nazis rise to power. Adam and Hannah have only one son, Ivan, who is fated to watch his father die in a concentration camp; as Ivan grows to adulthood (now played by Ralph Fiennes), he swears revenge on the forces of fascism and embraces Communism. Ivan throws in his lot with Communist leader Andor Knorr (William Hurt), but a liaison with the wife of a party official (Deborah Kara Unger) leads Ivan to tragic consequences and a jail term. In time, Valarie and Gustave are reunited at the family's estate as the only two members of the Sonnenschein clan who survive to witness the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Hungarian director Istvan Szabo co-wrote Sunshine's original screenplay in collaboration with American playwright Israel Horovitz. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This Hungarian slice-of-life drama chronicles the daily problems faced by Hungarians living in a post-communist world. Julie is the thirty year old working mother of an 11-year old boy. She makes her meager living as a free-lance photographer. His father has lived in Munich for many years. Julie has a young lover, but the two constantly encounter difficulty due to lack of housing and poor wages. Julie's former in-laws appear one day to ask if they can take her son to Munich to visit his father for Christmas. She finally agrees only to discover that they left the boy in Germany. Julie has no way to contact her son and ex-husband. In desperation, she sells her beloved camera so she can fly to Munich and begin her search. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Two short comic films with related themes are brought together under the title Tanmesek A Szexrol. In many parts of Europe, people buy the legal right to occupy apartments for the duration of their lifetimes, and must make a hefty down payment in order to do so. As most apartments are rented this way, it can be very difficult for people to move around, and it is especially difficult for young people just starting out to find a place to live. In the first story, an impoverished Budapest schoolteacher and her boyfriend cannot raise enough money to buy into an apartment together. When an accidental sexual encounter in which she is mistaken for a prostitute leads to her earning a quite large amount of cash, she takes to the streets on weekends, hoping to earn enough to buy into that dreamed-of apartment. In the second story, a betrothed couple who do not yet have an apartment cannot find anyplace to make love, and resort to some extraordinary and desperate strategies in order to be together. They get so accustomed to these efforts, that apartment living is quite a let-down for them. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Accompanied by a soundtrack of American oldies, this subtitled (in English) drama follows brothers in Budapest who attempt to survive a difficult youth in post-revolution Hungary during the early '60s. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

An incompetent school administrator bamboozles a crew of inspectors into thinking that his students are doing okay in this Hungarian comedy. Among his pedagogical inventions is a game called "spider football," in which students, moving along on their backsides, hands and feet, play a highly modified game of soccer. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi