If Zsuzsa Czinkóczi, the seven-year-old lead of this harrowing Hungarian drama from '76, was competing for an Oscar this year against Mickey Rourke for his mighty performance in "The Wrestler", Miss Czinkoczi would romp it in. Her performance in "Nobody's Daughter" is beyond comprehension. I was moved to tears by this extraordinary girl's portrayal of an orphan in 1940's Hungary. Back then, the Hungarian government paid families a stipend to take unwanted children into their home. Of course, there was no vetting process to weed out couples totally unsuited to parenting, let alone adoption. We meet Csore (Czinkoczi), the doomed waif of the story, in a field of corn where she is trying to get a cow to return to its enclosure. When she follows the beast into the corn, she is picked up by a stranger and raped. Directors Laszlo Ranódy and Gyula Mészáros then cut to Csore returning home after the rape where, feeling disoriented, she takes a beating for being late and has her hand deliberately burned with hot coals by her cold, adopted father. As the weeks creep on, Csore is depicted as an abused child with an almost unbelievable resilience to tragedy. Because she spends the first half of the movie fully naked in dirty, cold, hostile surroundings, the line between the actress and the character appears non-existent. Such is the magic of truly great film-making. Eventually, Csore is abandoned by her adoptive parents and taken to an orphanage where she comes within a hair of being adopted by a caring, loving couple. A complication prevents this fortuitous transaction and Csore is sold once again to another abusive, impoverished, unhappy couple who already have other children. Once again, she is subjected to abuse and given inferior status within the house. When all seems hopeless, the sun shines for the first time on Csore when she befriends a kind, bearded old man who takes her under his wing and treats her with respect and dignity. The brief scenes of their happy times together are heart-wrenching for the stark contrast they represent. Unfortunately, the old man passes away, and Csore is alone once again. Climaxing with fury and tragedy, this ultra-realistic look at poverty and abandonment (by the state and the individual) is easily one of the most moving and grotesque portraits of inhumanity to man that I have ever seen. Only the coldest of hearts could not go out to poor Csore, a child whose plight and death felt so real to me and affected me for days. The message this left me with is that bringing children into the world should not be a right, it should be a privilege that one must prove they are worthy of. Unfortunately, reproduction is the easy part.
9 Reviews
Ultra-realistic portrait of poverty and abandonment
fertilecelluloid9 January 2009
Warning: Spoilers
documentary style storytelling
idonotexist3 June 2024
Warning: Spoilers
I saw this movie decades ago in passing and thought nothing of it, yet it stuck with me as the only hungarian movie i can name and i see imdb shows me i rated it very high back then for some reason. Recently i rewatched it paying more attention partly because it has developed a bit of a following these days as part of the lost days of soviet era cinema.
This is based on a book written by Zsigmond Moricz after meeting the girl in real life several years after the events in the story take place; so yes this is based on a real person, written by someone with detailed knowledge of the character. This detail is relevant to know because of the old man character that comes into her life around midway in the story. Without knowing this, you might miss an easter egg. If i have to speculate the old man in the movie is actually the writer's persona. It very much feels like who that character is based on and there are several supporting reasons. He is nice to her, he mentors her, his age fits, their relationship comes to at random. These are all the things that occurred in real life between them after their meeting. Of course in the movie (and story) for the sake of the story, he ends up dying and she is all alone again. Moricz did not want this to be a happy ending story so the nice character had to depart. Although i would certainly say, that was his character that he wrote in.
On the topic of the setting, people like to bring up how horrible 1920s-1940s hungary was pointing out the movie's environment. That is an odd take because the movie can be anywhere USA in that time period; this is very much hungarian sharecroppers if you will. There is nothing shocking about it, there is nothing special about it. If you were told this took place in alabama 1920s you would not be able to tell the difference! This is rural earth post ww1 and leading into ww2. It pretty much was the same everywhere in rural areas so there is nothing particularly horrific here at all about the location. The reason it tends to feel odd is because this was made in 1975 and religion and sense of community was not really something you could incorporate due to soviet rules on cinema. In american movies of related subject matter, you would have state, church etc factions all being part of the script and here those cannot be used. And this leaves us with a dry perspective of things, probably why people feel this is somehow worse than anywhere USA in the same time period. You are missing the whole chunk of social commentary that would normally be part of a story like that.
Another misconception people like to claim is that this is an ugly movie in terms of content. In fact it is quite mild and it tends to downplay sensitive events and their significance, while keeping story limited to a very short period in the life of the girl. And i would say that is so because this is not an abuse story like some people take it for.
This is a story of hopelessness.
There is no focus on the bad things but rather a focus on the lack of the good things. The movie does not spend time on abuse scenes and aftermaths much at all, but rather tends to show the good events that could have happened to her passing her up for one reason or another. It uses quick and rather benign scenes of mistreatment to keep reminding you her life is bad, just in case you think things might have changed. Then it focuses on scenes of benevolence and it gives you that hope that things just might get better for her but they never do at the end. And we see the girl realizing that.. she is shown for a short moment here and there a better life which doesn't materialize. It just passes her by and she is back in her usual state of deprivation and neglect.
This is important to not forget for two reasons. The first one being how the book writer met the girl this movie is about. She was about to commit suicide off a bridge around age 10 (in a city), he walked by and the rest is history. The movie and book show her around age 7 so therefore the timeline is about 3 years from the movie to her breaking point in real life, and given the location he met her, she likely just ran away at that point and was done with fosters.
Second reason is the ending of the movie which ties in with how her met her and what she was trying to do. The ending is she burns down the farmhouse of her current nasty foster family. The movie is not clear if the family dies in the flames and if the girl dies as well. However we know from real life she wanted to die, and the ending of the story would suggest she burns the farm down and dies in it herself for sure. She sees no point to life further and puts and end to it in the only way she can. This ending path signifies the only somewhat detailed scene of abuse in the movie - when she got burned by the coals. This event is the only one that has a follow up in other scenes - being bandaged, her examining the wound as it heals. Since coals are fire it is fitting this memory remained with her and hence her burning the place down later on.
It is a sad story and remained such to the end. It is not a tear jerker where you are so just so saddened over events. Quite the opposite, it is very unemotional to the viewer. I have to attribute this to the character itself and how she just takes it.. there is no drama on her side.. takes it and moves on. There are no special angles or camera tricks of trying to create moody feelings and feed emotions to the viewer.. This is what happens, and now we move on type script. You know it's bad and sad but the movie does not exploit it. Which is probably a good thing because if it did it would be so heavy it would be unwatchable. If you are craving that emotional distress production this one will not give it to you. It is a very weird thing to try to describe and i have to admit, i now understand why this movie didn't impress me 20 years ago and today watching it again it still has no real impact. It is just dry. Can't think of a better way to put it. Dry soviet era production. Yet the real stab here comes from researching the real story behind the book. Once you know it's real, it does tent to increase the care factor.
I will not change my original rating although i want to give it a 6. However in the context of soviet era cinema, this is an 8 so we keep it at that.
8\10 There is absolutely no way anyone will have the fortitude and bravery to pick this up for a remake.
This is based on a book written by Zsigmond Moricz after meeting the girl in real life several years after the events in the story take place; so yes this is based on a real person, written by someone with detailed knowledge of the character. This detail is relevant to know because of the old man character that comes into her life around midway in the story. Without knowing this, you might miss an easter egg. If i have to speculate the old man in the movie is actually the writer's persona. It very much feels like who that character is based on and there are several supporting reasons. He is nice to her, he mentors her, his age fits, their relationship comes to at random. These are all the things that occurred in real life between them after their meeting. Of course in the movie (and story) for the sake of the story, he ends up dying and she is all alone again. Moricz did not want this to be a happy ending story so the nice character had to depart. Although i would certainly say, that was his character that he wrote in.
On the topic of the setting, people like to bring up how horrible 1920s-1940s hungary was pointing out the movie's environment. That is an odd take because the movie can be anywhere USA in that time period; this is very much hungarian sharecroppers if you will. There is nothing shocking about it, there is nothing special about it. If you were told this took place in alabama 1920s you would not be able to tell the difference! This is rural earth post ww1 and leading into ww2. It pretty much was the same everywhere in rural areas so there is nothing particularly horrific here at all about the location. The reason it tends to feel odd is because this was made in 1975 and religion and sense of community was not really something you could incorporate due to soviet rules on cinema. In american movies of related subject matter, you would have state, church etc factions all being part of the script and here those cannot be used. And this leaves us with a dry perspective of things, probably why people feel this is somehow worse than anywhere USA in the same time period. You are missing the whole chunk of social commentary that would normally be part of a story like that.
Another misconception people like to claim is that this is an ugly movie in terms of content. In fact it is quite mild and it tends to downplay sensitive events and their significance, while keeping story limited to a very short period in the life of the girl. And i would say that is so because this is not an abuse story like some people take it for.
This is a story of hopelessness.
There is no focus on the bad things but rather a focus on the lack of the good things. The movie does not spend time on abuse scenes and aftermaths much at all, but rather tends to show the good events that could have happened to her passing her up for one reason or another. It uses quick and rather benign scenes of mistreatment to keep reminding you her life is bad, just in case you think things might have changed. Then it focuses on scenes of benevolence and it gives you that hope that things just might get better for her but they never do at the end. And we see the girl realizing that.. she is shown for a short moment here and there a better life which doesn't materialize. It just passes her by and she is back in her usual state of deprivation and neglect.
This is important to not forget for two reasons. The first one being how the book writer met the girl this movie is about. She was about to commit suicide off a bridge around age 10 (in a city), he walked by and the rest is history. The movie and book show her around age 7 so therefore the timeline is about 3 years from the movie to her breaking point in real life, and given the location he met her, she likely just ran away at that point and was done with fosters.
Second reason is the ending of the movie which ties in with how her met her and what she was trying to do. The ending is she burns down the farmhouse of her current nasty foster family. The movie is not clear if the family dies in the flames and if the girl dies as well. However we know from real life she wanted to die, and the ending of the story would suggest she burns the farm down and dies in it herself for sure. She sees no point to life further and puts and end to it in the only way she can. This ending path signifies the only somewhat detailed scene of abuse in the movie - when she got burned by the coals. This event is the only one that has a follow up in other scenes - being bandaged, her examining the wound as it heals. Since coals are fire it is fitting this memory remained with her and hence her burning the place down later on.
It is a sad story and remained such to the end. It is not a tear jerker where you are so just so saddened over events. Quite the opposite, it is very unemotional to the viewer. I have to attribute this to the character itself and how she just takes it.. there is no drama on her side.. takes it and moves on. There are no special angles or camera tricks of trying to create moody feelings and feed emotions to the viewer.. This is what happens, and now we move on type script. You know it's bad and sad but the movie does not exploit it. Which is probably a good thing because if it did it would be so heavy it would be unwatchable. If you are craving that emotional distress production this one will not give it to you. It is a very weird thing to try to describe and i have to admit, i now understand why this movie didn't impress me 20 years ago and today watching it again it still has no real impact. It is just dry. Can't think of a better way to put it. Dry soviet era production. Yet the real stab here comes from researching the real story behind the book. Once you know it's real, it does tent to increase the care factor.
I will not change my original rating although i want to give it a 6. However in the context of soviet era cinema, this is an 8 so we keep it at that.
8\10 There is absolutely no way anyone will have the fortitude and bravery to pick this up for a remake.
Haunting tale of an impoverished society and it's neglect of a child.
snapper-1211 January 2005
In our world it is often children who suffer most egregiously when poverty claims a land.
French fairy tales of children being abandoned in woods when poor families could no longer feed themselves are based on true examples of abandonment. Examples exist from England and nearly every other country with written histories and where impoverishment has claimed lives and yes, when such conditions have eaten away the veneer of humanity, personal values, and selflessness.
Nobody's Daughter explores the depths of one such suffering child. This Hungarian movie graphically portrays the brutal cruelty of people in her life who were in their own battered way, considered otherwise good.
Zsuzsa Czinkóczi portrayed 6 year old Csöre as a nude child orphaned by circumstances. Her acting was a superb testament inasmuch as she is a child herself of course, and by even limited imagination we can hope that any other child impoverished or not may have some equal gift to offer mankind, if only given the chance.
Csöre in the film is viciously raped by a large man, grotesquely burned by other callous adults who occasionally feed her, later savagely beat by a foster mother and ... well, there is more but it's not my goal here to recant the movie in it's entirety, only to suggest to those caring viewers who are interested in reality as it existed in recent history, and in reality as it exists in other parts of today's 'modern' world, this film will provide you with much food for thought. It has me. My family and I were nearly in tears, breathless at the savage indifference to Csöre's personal feelings and physical tortures of her day-to-day's existence.
Nobody's Daughter is not about as one other reviewer said, "a nude girl running about...", for that is only the typical hypocrite knee-jerk utterance, or the pretentious puritan's silly thoughtless whisper, or a shallow view from a cretin's perspective.
Nay, this film should be recommended viewing for people embracing the idea of foster parenting, or for social workers in any country on earth, and for United Nations personnel who deal with the occurrence of poverty-based neglect of Earth's most valuable resource...our children.
Finally the moral Nobody's Daughter should graphically indicate to us all is that to abandon or neglect even one child on this planet is to abandon our hopes and dreams entirely.
French fairy tales of children being abandoned in woods when poor families could no longer feed themselves are based on true examples of abandonment. Examples exist from England and nearly every other country with written histories and where impoverishment has claimed lives and yes, when such conditions have eaten away the veneer of humanity, personal values, and selflessness.
Nobody's Daughter explores the depths of one such suffering child. This Hungarian movie graphically portrays the brutal cruelty of people in her life who were in their own battered way, considered otherwise good.
Zsuzsa Czinkóczi portrayed 6 year old Csöre as a nude child orphaned by circumstances. Her acting was a superb testament inasmuch as she is a child herself of course, and by even limited imagination we can hope that any other child impoverished or not may have some equal gift to offer mankind, if only given the chance.
Csöre in the film is viciously raped by a large man, grotesquely burned by other callous adults who occasionally feed her, later savagely beat by a foster mother and ... well, there is more but it's not my goal here to recant the movie in it's entirety, only to suggest to those caring viewers who are interested in reality as it existed in recent history, and in reality as it exists in other parts of today's 'modern' world, this film will provide you with much food for thought. It has me. My family and I were nearly in tears, breathless at the savage indifference to Csöre's personal feelings and physical tortures of her day-to-day's existence.
Nobody's Daughter is not about as one other reviewer said, "a nude girl running about...", for that is only the typical hypocrite knee-jerk utterance, or the pretentious puritan's silly thoughtless whisper, or a shallow view from a cretin's perspective.
Nay, this film should be recommended viewing for people embracing the idea of foster parenting, or for social workers in any country on earth, and for United Nations personnel who deal with the occurrence of poverty-based neglect of Earth's most valuable resource...our children.
Finally the moral Nobody's Daughter should graphically indicate to us all is that to abandon or neglect even one child on this planet is to abandon our hopes and dreams entirely.
grievous
ddioda28 December 2003
Anyone who is not familiar with the hungarian reality of 1920-40's, can not imagine what the essence of this movie is. So, even if you are not Hungarian, but want to see the movie, and additionally would like to understand it, you have to be open; you should know that different parts of the world have different histories, they have other spirits, and they could suffer and be glad in different ways than you.
This film is an excellent adaptation of a masterpiece novel by Móricz Zsigmond. We can see the background of that age through Csöre's life, which only was a small part of the system, but her little impulsive existence carry the whole Hungarian reality in the 20-30's. Anyone who doesn't know what it means to run among the sharp corn leaves naked as Csöre did on the very first moment of the film, can stop watching the movie, because it is pointless.
Czinkóczi Zsuzsa, who played the part of Csöre, recieved the main award of a child film festival. The director, Ranódy László, won the Hungarian Film Critics' award.
This film is an excellent adaptation of a masterpiece novel by Móricz Zsigmond. We can see the background of that age through Csöre's life, which only was a small part of the system, but her little impulsive existence carry the whole Hungarian reality in the 20-30's. Anyone who doesn't know what it means to run among the sharp corn leaves naked as Csöre did on the very first moment of the film, can stop watching the movie, because it is pointless.
Czinkóczi Zsuzsa, who played the part of Csöre, recieved the main award of a child film festival. The director, Ranódy László, won the Hungarian Film Critics' award.
very sad movie
gristvan1-470-5254657 September 2012
This movie is based on a true story. The novel was written by Zsigmond Móricz in 1941. He found a 10 years old little girl standing on the edge of the bridge of liberty in the downtown of Budapest. The little orphan wanted to be suicide. The writer took her with himself and treated her in the rest of his life as if the girl were his own daughter. The little orphan was talking a lot about her cruel life which inspired Móricz to write the novel this movie is based on. The story the girl told was more or less the same that can be seen on this movie... Dalkó Diána (ddioda@hotmail.com) above here describes it very well I think.
I never seen. i wo'nt seen.
asusoczki13 September 2023
The film was often shown on TV when I was a child, but I was unable to watch it. I was always sick from it (it is very depressing for a child under 10 years old.)
That's how the era really was. And there are still such things today, the life of those brought up in the institution is never easy, even today it may happen that the foster parent actually takes him in as a slave. It is not as common as it was then (so remember, there was no contraception, 5-10 children per household, great love was not the point)
To ayeshakhattak-42704
It's hungarian, use google translate: cultura.hu/kultura/moricz-es-csibe-tortenete/
On the surface, they functioned as a father-daughter duo, with time he also took the girl's name as Móricz, but in fact Csibe was the writer's last great love.
They also have a child.
"Finally, at the age of almost 60, he met Erzsébet Littkey, Csibe, who was 40 years younger than him. Their first meeting was decisive in itself. Csibe was about to jump off a bridge when Móricz saw him and saved him from suicide. He then took her in, and although his plan for his last years was to live in retirement in Leányfalu, in the end he made more than 1,500 pages of notes about Csibe's miserable life, and in addition to several short stories, he also inspired Árvácska.
On the surface, they functioned as a father-daughter duo, with time he also took the girl's name as Móricz, but in fact Csibe was the writer's last great love."
That's how the era really was. And there are still such things today, the life of those brought up in the institution is never easy, even today it may happen that the foster parent actually takes him in as a slave. It is not as common as it was then (so remember, there was no contraception, 5-10 children per household, great love was not the point)
To ayeshakhattak-42704
It's hungarian, use google translate: cultura.hu/kultura/moricz-es-csibe-tortenete/
On the surface, they functioned as a father-daughter duo, with time he also took the girl's name as Móricz, but in fact Csibe was the writer's last great love.
They also have a child.
"Finally, at the age of almost 60, he met Erzsébet Littkey, Csibe, who was 40 years younger than him. Their first meeting was decisive in itself. Csibe was about to jump off a bridge when Móricz saw him and saved him from suicide. He then took her in, and although his plan for his last years was to live in retirement in Leányfalu, in the end he made more than 1,500 pages of notes about Csibe's miserable life, and in addition to several short stories, he also inspired Árvácska.
On the surface, they functioned as a father-daughter duo, with time he also took the girl's name as Móricz, but in fact Csibe was the writer's last great love."
HEART WENCHING.VERY SAD
ayeshakhattak-427047 August 2023
I read one of view it was based on life of an orphan adopted by novelist.
One reivew is if anyone dnt know about Hungary since 1920 to 1930 should not watch it can one help me to know what was end in original novel.
Was the girl lead a good life after meeting the writer?
What was the condition in hungary in 1930?
Really these orphans were not givien any cloth.they were really as naked as she is?
She exactly has looks of my daughter i am very sad to see it.
Feeling tears to see it.
The people at that were as cruel as they treated her by not giving here cloths even. There was no check and balance and children and money were given to these fostering ill minded parents.
One reivew is if anyone dnt know about Hungary since 1920 to 1930 should not watch it can one help me to know what was end in original novel.
Was the girl lead a good life after meeting the writer?
What was the condition in hungary in 1930?
Really these orphans were not givien any cloth.they were really as naked as she is?
She exactly has looks of my daughter i am very sad to see it.
Feeling tears to see it.
The people at that were as cruel as they treated her by not giving here cloths even. There was no check and balance and children and money were given to these fostering ill minded parents.
Not a good movie for me
jedi787plus30 August 2005
Warning: Spoilers
I can't give out many details about the movie (so as to avoid spoiling it), but I can assure you that this isn't a good movie, or it hasn't a good ending.
Apart from being considerably heavy in child nudity (which is one of this movie's absolute no-no's because it can easily excite pedophiles and the so-called "David Hamilton fans" which are nothing more than just visual pederasts), it is also somewhat gory and too graphic in its display of child abuse (especially during the first 30 minutes).
Absolutely for sure, I don't recommend you to watch this movie unless you really want to suffer in your heart whatever Csöre suffers there.
If you are weak-hearted, then avoid this movie; if you are strong-hearted, then you might withstand this movie.
Apart from being considerably heavy in child nudity (which is one of this movie's absolute no-no's because it can easily excite pedophiles and the so-called "David Hamilton fans" which are nothing more than just visual pederasts), it is also somewhat gory and too graphic in its display of child abuse (especially during the first 30 minutes).
Absolutely for sure, I don't recommend you to watch this movie unless you really want to suffer in your heart whatever Csöre suffers there.
If you are weak-hearted, then avoid this movie; if you are strong-hearted, then you might withstand this movie.
Cinderella without the good side....
tvrtasmin10 December 2001
Warning: Spoilers
This film starts with the graphic rape of a 6 year old child who runs naked throughout the first half of the film. A good character study of how her abuse changes from the first half to the second half when she goes with a new family. I could feel her pain and lost youth, but the sight of the naked child through more than half the film bothered me. Sort of a Cinderela story without the ball or the prince, just the abuse. I won't spoil the ending just to say anticlimatic.... no justice.
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