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‘The Hungarian Dressmaker’ Focuses on a Dark Slovak Past Many Try to Forget
In Karlovy Vary competition film ‘The Hungarian Dressmaker,’ Slovak director Iveta Grofova bets WWII-set tale on commanding actor Alexandra Borbely.
Slovak director Iveta Grofova says she became fascinated with one of the darkest periods in her country’s recent past when she read Peter Kristufek’s book “Emma and the Death’s Head,” which tells the story of Marika, a Hungarian widow who shelters a young Jewish boy in her home. Grofova achieves a brooding style and minimalist tone in “The Hungarian Dressmaker” – especially its montage sequences involving macro lens shifts that lend an other-worldly aspect to Marika’s dilemmas, making masterful use of cinematographer Martin Strba. Borbely’s ability to shift between the pastiche of languages, cultures and traditions of the time were essential, Grofova, she says, in helping audiences grasp tensions facing ethnic Hungarians in Slovak lands during the war.
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