Italian
Looking back seems to offer a prescient look ahead in “The Hungarian Dressmaker,” Iveta Grófová’s compelling adaptation of Peter Krištúfek’s novella “Emma and the Death’s Head,” set in Slovakia during World War II. At the time, locals had to navigate the uncharted territory of authoritarianism, when the far-right Hlinka Slovak People’s Party rose to power with the encouragement of the Nazis.
Even if cinematographer Martin Štrba hadn’t taken the camera off the tripod to shoot with the abandon generally reserved for Terrence Malick’s later films, this period piece would still seem unusually modern in its portrait of a society ruled by fear. Here, so much relies on individual choices, honing in on a heroine harried by having to weigh her own sense of security against what she can contribute to the greater good.
Although Krištúfek had always intended a story of survival, Grófová seems well aware that strictly following the source material might’ve produced a more familiar film when Marika (Alexandra Borbély) is tasked with hiding a young Jewish boy named Šimon (Nico Klimek) to spare him from a surely tragic fate should he fall into the wrong hands. Instead, working with Krištúfek as a co-writer, Grófová focuses on Marika’s psychological self-preservation when she can no longer be the person she once was, or more perilously hold onto the same values she once did.
Popular on Variety After work as a seamstress has dried up in the city and fears of a greater Nazi presence lead her to move to a village near the Slovak/Hungarian border, she remains uncomfortable in the role she’s been cast in. She settles into a dilapidated home that belonged to her late husband and takes responsibility for Šimon, for whom she has limited patience. She may pretend to be his mother for his safety, but she takes a sharper tone with him in private than if they actually had that connection and almost immediately upon arriving in the village of Biskupice, Šimon is forced into hiding out an abundance of caution when the Hlinka Guard comes calling to confiscate any possessions of value to Marika.
Rather than depict the clear and present dangers that need not be emphasized, Grófová relies on how dangerous the imagination can be. Marika takes uncomfortable steps to protect herself, hardly appearing noble for giving shelter to Šimon; she forces him to sleep with the pigs to keep her own sanity. Marika also reluctantly gives into the advances of Dusan (Milan Ondrík), one of the members of the Hlinka Guard who comes to her home, though less for any cover he could offer in his position than the benefit of having any kind of physical companionship after being deprived of it for so long. In someone else’s hands, these moral quandaries might be expressed with sleepless nights, but instead Grófová allows them to rest uneasily on the face of Borbély, who portray Marika with a stoicism that she wields to get through the day, as well as enough self-inflicted blindness from the choices she makes.
While the film concentrates on what’s within Marika’s orbit (in an almost literal sense, with how Štrba pivots around her with the camera), these same dilemmas can be seen rippling throughout the community that she’s a part of. The Slovak Guard acts with impunity in the film, but they look less powerful when their authority is questioned and residents have only their own conscience to lean on. Grófová takes advantage of the unique historical setting of the short-lived First Slovak Republic, afforded independence because of their support of Nazi Germany and hardly representative of the people that lived there, exposing the blind spots for both the guards sent into communities and those they were sent to patrol. Though merciless in its view of Marika and the conundrums she faces, the film also doesn’t spare audiences when the difficult decisions she’s faced with don’t seem to be at much of a remove, historically or otherwise.
