Sweet eyes. “Anyutins eyes” – this is how the name of the picture sounds in the original language. In the US, it was released under the title “Nobody’s daughter”.
This film is an adaptation of the masterpiece of Zigmond Moritz. Zigmond Moritz is a Hungarian novelist and the largest representative of critical realism in Hungarian literature. His works expressed the life of the Hungarian peasantry and the problems of poverty. The novel was written in 1940, after he saved a girl from suicide in the summer of 1936. The orphan wanted to kill herself - jumping into the Danube, standing on the edge of a bridge in central Budapest to end an unbearable and humiliating life. The writer took her with him and she became his adopted daughter, all his life he treated her like his own child. She talked a lot about her cruel life and her memories of foster parents, torture over the years, sadism in the darkest tones and inspired Moritz to write a novel. Anyway, the film tells the story of this orphan.
Laszlo Ranodi and Gyula Mesaros did a giant job in finding the main character. Seven thousand children, trips to orphanages and boarding schools, then another five thousand. The circle narrowed. In the end, of the six girls, the role of Chore received seven-year-old Zhuji Tsinkochi, who played amazingly and immediately became famous. She received the main prize of the festival of films for children, Laszlo Ranodi – the award of film criticism of Hungary. Zhuji Tsinkotsi became the favorite of Martha Mesaros and starred in many of her paintings, as well as in the master Miklos Jancho. After the premiere of “Orphans” in Hungary (1976) and distribution in cinemas, the number of visitors reaches a million people, and after broadcasting on TV, this figure increases fourfold.
This is a very creepy story because it contains abuse and humiliation of a child and the controversial nude scenes may shock some viewers. But these scenes play their part to illustrate the overwhelming degradation of physical and psychological brutality. Reaching the climax of rage and tragedy, an ultra-realistic view of the brutality of people and the state is one of the most moving and grotesque portraits of inhumanity towards man. “Orphan” explores the depths of the soul of a suffering child and graphically depicts the brutal cruelty of people. A picture of neglect of the Earth’s most precious resource: our children. A terrible story, really terrible, terrible in its truth. Heavy, full of drama and cruelty film. The atmosphere around this unhappy child is full of anger, hatred, outright cynicism and humiliation. Not everyone in the audience will take a second look.
A film with a girl's heartbreaking story reveals the injustice of Hungary's pre-World War II system. The Hungarian government then paid subsidies to families who accepted unwanted children into their homes. I didn’t know what happened to the child. There was no control. Chore, a seven-year-old orphan, lives in an aggressive environment with peasants in the Hungarian steppe of the 1930s. She herds a cow, a field of corn is nearby, a doomed street child is abused by a scumbag neighbor. With a sense of disorientation, she returns home. Adoptive parents, learning about what happened, do not take action. In addition, the “father” burns her hand with hot coal. For picking watermelon off melon and having lunch with the cow. Weeks go by. Chore is portrayed as an abused child with an almost incredible resilience to tragedy. She spends the first half of the film completely naked in a dirty, cold, hostile environment. The boundary between the actress and the character simply does not exist. This is the magic of a great movie.
Next, the family abandons Chore and takes her to an orphanage. Another caring and loving couple tries to adopt her, but bureaucratic complications arise and the procedure is stopped. And then she gets into a family with a rather dubious reputation. Again, she is being abused given her lower status in the house. When everything seems hopeless, a small ray of happiness illuminates Chore's sad face - she meets a friend. This is a bearded old man who takes her under his wing and treats her with respect and dignity. Torturously striking contrast are happy short scenes of their communication. But soon they end, the old man dies. Chore is lonely again, alone in the world. Life is unbearable. Christmas is coming.
Christmas. The barn, Chore - one, paper doll, kerosene lamp, straw, fire, fire everywhere, purple sunset ... Evil is punished.