There was something deeply compelling about this rigorous and austere look at identity and trauma by Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó.

It’s in three parts and mostly done in single takes. We begin with an almost wordless scene in the last days of World War Two as Russian workers clean out a cavernous and dilapidated shower that has been used for genocide. The camera swirls, the men scrub and sweep, at first resigned and then increasingly emotional as they find vestiges of the people who have died there. And then they hear a baby cry and find a toddler, Eva, hiding in a drain.

There are surreal elements and so we know we are not necessarily watching an event unfold but a representation of the human experience of recognising what has happened and committing to never allowing it to happen again. Eva is the generation saved and the promise of something better.

We then shift forward maybe 60 years and Eva (Lili Monori) is an elderly grandmother, sparring with her daughter Léna (Annamária Láng) who has just divorced her husband. The camera again circles around the women as they bicker over Léna’s need to prove that she is Jewish so that her son Jonas can get into a good pre-school. This is a breathtakingly long scene where the camera briefly and vertiginously glides out of the window of the high apartment and back in again and Eva weaves a tangled monologue about her parents and the trauma of being born in Auschwitz.

The role of mother and daughter is shifting, with Eva developing dementia and in need of Léna’s care yet unable to let go of her detailed and treasured narrative about who she is. Again there are surreal elements that end the scene in a deeply affecting way, speaking of emotional overwhelm and the destruction of identity and self.

The last scene is set in present day Berlin as Léna’s teenage son Jónás (Goya Rego), tries to navigate being the only Jewish boy in a white and Christian school culture. He wants to befriend Yasmin (Padmé Hamdamir), a girl from an Arabic family, perhaps drawn by her similar experiences of being ostracised. With this one, the camera follows Jonas from school onto a bus then home, in and around that same apartment and then out again. For him, being Jewish is an impediment, proving right Eva’s fears that no good can come of telling German officials that you are Jewish.

The third act provided the least impact, perhaps because the surreal elements weren’t repeated, making it feel more prosaic, and because the ending felt a little twee.

Overall, it was compelling viewing, reflecting on how we haven’t come very far since 1945.

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