Abandoned 2001

Abandoned 2001
Torzók (originl title)
1h 40min | Drama | 25 October 2001 (Hungary)
Storyline
Áron is a happy child in his family. But at some point things take a different turn, and his mother starts to lose her health rapidly. As this happens, the man in charge decides what's best for Áron without consulting the young boy's opinion, and the boy finds himself thrown out of his warm home into an orphanage in the woods. He's utterly displeased by what's happening, without knowing he has yet to face much worse. After a hard time getting over the harrassment of his classmates and being accepted as one of them, another obstacle on the way to his peace of mind faces him: His obnoxious teachers. He has no intention of being bad, but it's beyond his ability to blend into the revolting place he's in. The nasty treatment of the teaching crew gets the better of him, and he's not all that calm and passive anymore. But that leads into unpleasant events which Áron himself wouldn't want.
User review:
Abandoned also known as Torzok is a powerful movie. It was made in Hungary and is a fine example of the East European cinema. Its director Árpád Sopsits shows the reality of a reformatory school during a communist regime in the country. He uses the yellow color to separate the dream like scenes from the rest – this color technique is later used in the movie Traffic. The movie portrays the harsh reality of the live in Hungary from that time because it is actually based on the writer/director's own childhood.
The main character is Áron – a boy send to a reformatory school not because he has some something , but because his mother is sick and the father does not want to take care of his son. Once in the school Áron has to face the initial hostility of the lands there towards the newcomers – including beatings and hard words .He manages to survive through all those harsh moments and is soon accepted and befriended by the boys from the school.
The actors in the movies are exceptionally talented despite their young age and the characters they portray come to live – each with its own uniqueness. The overall atmosphere is dark and the movie can be considered as hard to watch by anyone – probably the only one witch harsher atmosphere on a similar topic was in the movie Song for a raggy boy . The few moments of hope which the viewers can observe are directly related to the friendship between Aron and another student Attila as well as the one with his melancholic teacher Gálffi – who seems to be the only teacher from the reformatory school who cares of his students and opposes even the despotic director of the institution.