{"id":480767,"date":"2026-05-12T11:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/480767\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T11:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:34:13","slug":"my-father-thought-my-grandfather-died-in-the-holocaust-it-was-all-a-lie-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/480767\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018My father thought my grandfather died in the Holocaust. It was all a lie\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes is brushing off his dinner jacket and shining his shoes. In a few days his fourth film, Moulin, will make its premiere in the main competition at Cannes<\/a>. The picture\u2019s arrival there was a tad unexpected. It was only last September that his twisty Orphan, a family drama in minor key, premiered at Venice International Film Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, he is royalty at Cannes. It was there, in 2015, that Son of Saul<\/a>, his debut feature, came within a whisker of winning the Palme d\u2019Or. Following a Sonderkommando \u2013 one of the prisoners forced into Auschwitz work units \u2013 as he sought to bury his son, the film remains branded on the minds of all who saw it.<\/p>\n

Moulin sounds like a departure for the Hungarian film-maker<\/a>. His first film in French stars Gilles Lellouche as Jean Moulin, the French Resistance hero who, dropped into occupied France to help rally support for Charles de Gaulle, ended up captured by the notorious Nazi Klaus Barbie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That codes a tad more mainstream than his earlier work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a French movie,\u201d Nemes confirms. \u201cIt is a shock of the titans. It is about two worlds colliding when Klaus Barbie, the infamous butcher of the Gestapo, catches the head of the French Resistance. It really is two world views that are clashing. I think that\u2019s something that\u2019s very interesting. I\u2019m very excited about this widescreen cinema experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unexpectedly speedy arrival of Moulin at the French film festival is all the more notable for the occasional slowness of Nemes\u2019 work rate to this point. There was a full seven years between Sunset<\/a>, his fascinating, puzzling second film, and the touching, troubling Orphan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, there were delays,\u201d he says. \u201cI also wanted to make a film in English first, and I battled the Anglo-Saxon world of film, trying to get my first English-speaking movie off the ground. So that hasn\u2019t happened. It may still at some point. And then Covid happened. I also had the idea of making a third Hungarian movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

There seems to be a lot of family history in Orphan. The picture, beginning in the immediate aftermath of the second World War, has Kl\u00e1ra, a Holocaust<\/a> survivor, meeting up with Andor, her infant son, in a ravaged Budapest. <\/p>\n

A decade later, Mih\u00e1ly, the man who sheltered her during the conflict, possibly for sexual favours, turns up and attempts to restart the relationship. Andor, eager to locate his missing father, doesn\u2019t much fancy the idea of this burly brute as stand-in parent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe foundational story is that my father had to change his name when he was 12,\u201d Nemes says. \u201cHe had to embrace an entirely new reality. He thought that his father died in the Holocaust, and he found out, at the age of 12, that it was all a lie \u2013 that his real father was someone who was hiding his mother during the Holocaust. And he was a very, very abusive, brutish man. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust coming to terms with that reality left its mark on his life, very deeply. But it also traumatised me when I was growing up. This was a burden I had to carry.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is a fascinating hunk of personal lore. It is the sort of story that families often suppress. Was it talked about when he was growing up?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did talk about it,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd my grandmother also talked about it, although she didn\u2019t give the most intimate and most difficult details. She didn\u2019t disclose them. But she did talk about the tragedy of her life. So I guess it was a two-fold origin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orphan is remarkable for soupy colours that powerfully convey a country in uncertain transition. It is chilling on the communist regime\u2019s intolerance of dissent. What really sets the film apart, however, is Gr\u00e9gory Gadebois\u2019s chilling performance as Mih\u00e1ly. A father? A father figure? Either way, the actor\u2019s hulking charisma is unforgettable. How did Nemes settle on a French performer?<\/p>\n

\n

I guess he was a master to me. I was inspired by his approach to film-making, his uncompromising directorial style<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes on Hungarian director B\u00e9la Tarr<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI was looking for someone who had a potential for violence and aggression and power but was still lovable in a way,\u201d the director says. \u201cAnd that is not so easy to find, especially in Hungary. It wasn\u2019t easy. I had to look elsewhere. I looked at all the countries in Europe and came up with a solution of using Gregory, who immediately said that he would learn his lines in Hungarian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nemes freely volunteers that, when treating Gadebois\u2019s dialogue, they \u201cused different AI models to help us\u201d. He was comfortable with that?<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Severance actor Adam Scott on filming in west Cork: \u2018I was the American weirdo upstairs. I loved it\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. If you use AI just to push a button and then get a result I don\u2019t believe in it. But I think AI is completely overestimated. I really believe that. I was completely comfortable because it actually made us work 10 times more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Budapest 49 years ago, son of the Hungarian director and writer Andr\u00e1s Jeles, Nemes moved with his family to Paris at the age of 12. Later he studied film directing at New York University\u2019s Tisch School of the Arts. But he has always remained connected to the culture of his home nation. For two years he worked as assistant to the great (possibly the greatest) Hungarian director B\u00e9la Tarr<\/a>, who died earlier this year. <\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I guess he was a master to me,\u201d Nemes says. \u201cI was inspired by his approach to film-making, his uncompromising directorial style. Space is so important. Without good casting your film will fail. It has to be believable. The attention to the craft. These are all things I got from working for him. I owe him this very particular approach where you have to stick to your dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wonder what possibilities Son of Saul opened up for him. After securing the Grand Prix at Cannes (to everyone\u2019s bafflement, the Palme d\u2019Or was handed to Jacques Audiard\u2019s so-so Dheepan<\/a>), the picture went on to win the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, as the prize was then still called, at an unstoppable gallop. Did mad offers come the way of this unforgiving director?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did,\u201d he says. \u201cI was offered projects I didn\u2019t want. So the Oscar does open doors in a way. But people also want to put you in a box. They think you\u2019re a certain type of film-maker. People think I\u2019m so very serious all the time. That I only think about death and things like that. And you have to think about death, but maybe not all the time, you know. <\/p>\n

\"BojtorjánBojtorj\u00e1n Barabas as Andor in L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes’ Orphan <\/p>\n

\u201cThe industry, how it works, is treacherous. People say they want to work with you, but they don\u2019t. I have a very uncompromising way of making films.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nemes is, for good or ill, not afraid of provoking outrage. We saw that in 2024 when he criticised Jonathan Glazer<\/a>\u2019s speech condemning the Israeli campaign in Gaza \u2013 as well as honouring the victims of the Hamas attacks of October 7th, 2023 \u2013 while accepting his Oscar for The Zone of Interest<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Nemes said Glazer \u201cshould have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history\u201d. He then got stuck into Glazer\u2019s film (which had also won the Grand Prix at Cannes). \u201cThere is absolutely no Jewish presence on screen in The Zone of Interest,\u201d he said. \u201cLet us all be shocked by the Holocaust, safely in the past, and not see how the world might eventually, one day, finish Hitler\u2019s job.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is a bit more diplomatic today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did like the film,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought, when you win an Oscar for a film that takes place in the middle of the extermination machine of Auschwitz, you have to have some kind of responsibility for what kind of things you say. I really believe that you have to bear a responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Son of Saul, Nemes embarked on a misunderstood work that seems ripe for reappraisal. Sunset, released in 2018, follows a young milliner about Budapest as Europe unwittingly blunders towards the first World War. It has the rigour and resistance of a great modernist novel. <\/p>\n

\"AndreaAndrea Waskovics as Kl\u00e1ra and Gr\u00e9gory Gadebois as Mih\u00e1ly in Orphan <\/p>\n

As we wind down our chat about that film \u2013 noting sources in FW Murnau\u2019s Sunrise, from 1927 \u2013 Nemes seeks to win favour with his Irish audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to add, in Sunset, my biggest inspiration, in a way, apart from Murnau\u2019s movie, was Joyce\u2019s Ulysses,\u201d he says. \u201cJoyce<\/a> was talking about a Hungarian Jew at the beginning of the century. The heroine of Sunset was from Trieste, and Joyce partly wrote Ulysses in Trieste. I am very much connected to that book. And I just wanted to point that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duly noted.<\/p>\n

Orphan is in cinemas from Friday, May 15th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Nemes is brushing off his dinner jacket and shining his shoes. In a few days his fourth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[210329,11519,18,117,2220,25126,19,17,16002,210330,210328,113295,11492],"class_list":{"0":"post-480767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-bela-tarr","9":"tag-cannes-film-festival","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-hungary","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-james-joyce","17":"tag-jonathan-glazer","18":"tag-laszlo-nemes","19":"tag-the-holocaust","20":"tag-venice-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116561397566900933","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}