Veljeni tulee huomenna

Jön az öcsém (1919)

** (out of 4)

Hungarian film based on a poem by Antal Farkas tells the story of a man trying to make it back home to his son and brother. This short film from the legendary Curtiz is the only one of his movies from his Hungarian days to survive, which is a shame as this movie offers up some rather interesting visuals from the future director of Casablanca. This film is what we'd now call "illustrated text" as title cards for the most part tell the story and we only get a few visuals to help carry it along. The visuals are quite striking here and a lot of this is due to the tinting, which is used very effectively. There's a terrific shot of the brother standing on top of a rock hill and another great shot of him entering his home to see his family. These shots can't carry the film however because even at 11-minutes this thing feels very long winded as the story never really can carry through and be entertaining.