Le Grand Cahier

Yes, Szász really did not live up to his reputation as an uncompromising and original filmmaker that he had in the 1990s. The Notebook looks more like an Eastern European HBO production - a relatively intimate expedition, repeating the same locations, and the fact that it is directed relatively sedentarily. If I deviate from these secondary categories, I also have complaints about the script, which is too dependent on the book by Ágota Kristóf. On the one hand, he draws harsh and raw monologues from it, on the other hand, he sometimes quite roughly motivates what seemed to look natural in the book. Nevertheless, Szász conquered me with these lessons in hardness, renunciation and suffering. The central duo of "wolves" is excellent, the grandmother is sweet and some of the supporting characters are irresistible. In particular, the middle of the film, in which the ruin of maternal love intertwines with the flow of swearing and drastic scenes, only captured artistically in a notebook, is amazing. War penetrates the boys' world as a reflection, and they fight their own war in order to defeat emotions and uproot all love. The stream of blows and deviant episodes, culminating in a drastic act, exudes a musty, unpleasant atmosphere that remotely resembles Haneke's The White Ribbon. It’s too bad about the unfinished stylization, but it’s still a significant experience. (04/07/2013)