Slovakian director Iveta Grofova says she became fascinated by 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 becomes a young Jewish boy shelters in her home.
Set near the Hungarian border during World War II in the Nazi puppet Slovak state, the novel embraces the imagery of the Death’s Head Moth, whose pattern mirrors the same skull adopted by the Nazi SS, to force readers into a period which, according to Grofova, most Slovaks would prefer. forget.
This was part of the appeal of turning it into a film, she says, but what really interested her was Marika’s perspective and the impossible decisions she would face. Thus, “The Hungarian Seamstress,” as she called her film, which was shown in the main Crystal Globe competition of the Karlovy Vary fest, shifts the point of view from the hiding boy to his protector.
“I was attracted by the topic of the rise of the Slovak state in wartime,” says Grofova. “It is such a dark youth of my country, which Slovaks have not yet come to terms with.”
As Marika, who works for a Jewish tailor, finds herself unemployed at a time when everything is in short supply and state police criminals are taking valuables – and suspicious residents – from every home they try to enter, Marika faces existential threats from the start. moments from Grofova’s film.
Producer Zuzana Mistríkova, director Iveta Grofova and producer Ondrej Trojan.
Already grieving for her missing husband and left to run the family farm alone, she is barely prepared when she learns that a Jewish boy is hiding in her house – a sin for which both will likely lose their lives. As a Hungarian woman, Marika sees firsthand how that ethnicity is being eradicated along with its Jewish residents, each pitted against the other, making her existence even more dangerous – and it hardly helps that a top local official has taken an interest in her.
“When I first read the book, I was pregnant,” says Grofova. “Maybe that’s why I was very deeply connected to the character of the Hungarian widow Marika. “What could I do in her place at the expense of my own safety for someone else’s child? What contradictions and dilemmas did she have?”
Grofova achieves a somber style and minimalist tone in “The Hungarian Seamstress” – especially the montage sequences with macro lens shifts that lend an otherworldly aspect to Marika’s dilemmas, making masterful use of cinematographer Martin Strba.
“The camera is the co-narrator of feelings and emotions in this film,” she says. “At the same time, the stylized, imaginative image helps me to suggest the metaphor of the continued presence of life and death – good and dark – Emma and the Skull within us.”
Grofova relies heavily on actor Alexandra Borbely to carry it along, with many scenes focusing on her pain, fear and determination, often left unspoken. The director says she was willing to bet on the ethnic Hungarian Slovak theater artist for the role, which is only her third on screen.
“Alexandra is a great actress,” says the director. ‘I had no doubt that she would take on this demanding task. Throughout the entire collaboration I had the feeling that she understood my specific way of directing. I think she reached the end of her physical and mental strength in the final scene and I am very grateful to her for that.”
Borbely’s ability to move between the pastiche of languages, cultures and traditions of the time was essential, Grofova says, in helping audiences understand the tensions that ethnic Hungarians in Slovak lands faced during the war.
“This was really important to me. I wanted to portray the multicultural character of the capital of Slovakia and its periphery on the Slovak-Hungarian border as authentically as possible. Slovaks do not like to realize that their roots are ethnically very varied and that excessive nationalism is contrary to our real history.”
The film’s setting also helps it transcend time, evoking the smallness of its harsh world, filled with the details of the period.
“Fortunately, we found the main location of Marika’s house in the authentic environment of a Slovak village, which until now was mainly inhabited by Hungarians.”
Grofova’s main challenge, she says, was “to show the characters’ actions from the point of view they could have had at the time. Not from today’s point of view, where we can afford to moralize and judge the past. Only through history given in this way can we discover parallels with our behavior in the present. If I succeed at least a little, I will be satisfied.”
Watch trailer here.
