Austeria

Austeria

1983
Drama
1h 49m
Set in the Polish Galicia in 1914, on the eve of World War I. Three nationalities are living in the area: Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish. The country inn (Austeria in Galician) is run by an old and wise Jew, Tag. The neighboring village is abandoned by the Jews, who left only few steps ahead of advancing Cossacks. Soon the inn is full of desperate Jews, there is also an Austrian baroness on the run and an Hungarian hussar cut off from his unit. (imdb)
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Austeria

1983
Drama
1h 49m
Your probable score
Avg Percentile 65.2% from 26 total ratings

Ratings & Reviews

(26)
Compact view
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Rated 06 Oct 2020
80
91st
War on a global scale but as seen on its first day and through a single window, which is to say a very local microcosm, but also a prism through which macrocosmic events, past, present and future, are diffracted. Although the significance of some scenes is hard to discern, it seems that great care and thought has gone into asking how best to construct a cinematic metaphor: what images, what music, what events, what ways of following or not following characters in space and time. A real surprise.
Rated 10 Oct 2020
75
84th
If Ford was Jewish, he might have made Austeria. Like How Green Was My Valley, it's a story of a fading world on the verge of extinction, and it depicts the struggle to 'consist' against unrelenting forces of change. Kawalerowicz was no sentimentalist though, and the existential fears, anxieties and sense of displacement vividly conveyed through the seemingly endless recreations of customs/ritual seem more broadly tied to the Jewish experience beyond this specific socio-historical context.

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