Film Review: Music Box

Director: Costa-Gravas

A 1989 film about the holocaust involving the alleged involvement of a Hungarian in the Nazi's plan to externminate the Jews. The film is loosely based on the real life story of John Demjanjuk and the life of Joe Eszterhaus, who wrote the movie, who found out later in life that his dad was a Nazi collaborator in Hungary.

*spoilers ahead!!!!*

Defense attorney Anne Talbot learns that he father Michael Laszlo is going to lose his American citizenship because he is accused of war crimes during the Second World War. He claims it is a case of mistaken identity and that he is a simple Hungarian refugee but the prosecution believe he is the former commander of a death squad linked to the Hungary's Fascist and racist Arrow Cross Party called ''Mishka''. Then during the Siege of Budapest, Mishka and his unit tortured and murdered scores of Hungarian Jews, Gypsies, and many others with psychopathic glee. Anne fights his case in court whilst trying to determine that it was definitely not him who was involved.

Anne Talbot (Jessica Lange) and Michael Laszlo (Armin Mueller-Stahl)

It is a thrilling film with an incredibly moving climax that asks many questions about what has happened and how you would feel about it being in the same situation. How would you deal with the fact that your Dad was a war criminal who tortured and murdered hundreds of people during the Second World War? The ending where she confronts her Dad about this and he still denies it is heart-breaking. Did he repress the memories so much that he still believes he didn't do it or is he just refusing to accept his responsibility and deal with it because he will lose his family?

The main downside of the movie is that little effort is made to understand Michael Laszlo and what he did. It spends too much time with court room theatrics and surprise witnesses to make it a court room drama rather than dealing with the actual issues at hand. Laszlo is more a side character who just sits in court whilst it all goes on around you which is a shame as there was scope for this to be a fantastic film.

2.5/4 heart-breaking tale of atrocities during the war but fails to help us understand the problem