Director Janos Szasz’s drama “The Notebook” (“Le Grand Cahier”) is a beautifully made but disturbing tale about the trauma suffered by two boys hidden in the Hungarian countryside by their parents during World War II. 

Based on Hungarian-born Agota Kristof’s 1986 French-language novel, “The Notebook” (which has nothing to do with the Nicholas Sparks romance film of the same name) is a child’s-eye view of war that is specific to the twins’ story and general to the appalling events and inhumanity of this war. The film is more akin Gunter Grass’s “The Tin Drum,” which was steeped in symbolism on the horror of war.

Set in Hungary late in the war, the loving parents of sweet twin boys (played by brothers András and László Gyémánt) decide that their sons must be hidden to keep them safe. As their soldier father (Ulrich Matthes) prepares to leave for war, he tells them they must continue their studies no matter what and gives them a notebook, in which he tells them to record everything. What they document is their transformation by their appalling wartime experiences.

Their mother (Gyöngyvér Bognár) takes the dark-haired, dark-eyed boys to a remote village near the German border to stay with her mother. Known in the village as “the witch,” the brutal, hard-drinking grandmother (Piroska Molnár) greets them with curses, berating her daughter for having been gone for 20 years, only returning to dump her children on her. She calls her grandsons by a name that implies their parents aren’t married. The daughter says nothing to her, not even the boys names, and runs off, telling the boys she loves them and promising to return.

In fact, we never learn anyone’s name in this brilliantly crafted yet unsettling film. Much of the film plays out like a Grimms fairy tale, filled with frightening symbolism. We never learn why the mother hides her boys with this appalling grandmother. Although there are hints that their father might be Jewish, the grandmother clearly is not. As the boys settle in to carry out their father’s wishes to continue their studies using his encyclopedia, they add a bible they find in their grandmother’s house. They memorize the Ten Commandments and judge what they see against them.  

Life with grandmother is gray, but the film springs to life in the partly animated drawings and notes the boys keep in their notebook. Their grandmother works them like slaves, to earn their food. As harsh as she is, the town’s people are worse. The priest is a lecher, his blond young maid is a pedophile and the villagers regard the grandsons of “the witch” with disdain. 

The only adult that shows the boys any kindness is a Jewish shoemaker (János Derzsi), who gives them boots to survive the hard winter. Otherwise, the twins are surrounded by awfulness. Their only playmate is a fellow outcast, a neighbor girl known as Hare Lip, who steals and lies. 

The Nazis invade and set up a concentration camp next to their farm. The Nazi officer (Ulrich Thomsen) who runs the concentration camp rents a cottage on grandmother’s farm, and he expresses his admiration for the boys when he sees them beating each other in an effort to become tough enough to survive. 

This is no uplifting story of survival. The boys are plunged into a world of absurd and inhuman adults, and the horrors of the war transform these children from sweet and kind into cold, merciless beings set only on survival. 

The acting is superb, as is the photography and direction, but the film’s horrifying content is hard to take. 

Symbolism plays a major role in this film. We rarely see brutality directly, but it comes alive in the drawings in the notebook and in the boys’ narration. Shots of the concentration camp show  rows of barracks devoid of guards or prisoners, but the animated drawings show shootings, lined-up bodies and other horrors. 

As starvation grips the countryside, the townsfolk violate their purported morals. When the Nazis round up the town’s Jews, the villagers express smug approval. The boys are devastated at the loss of the kindhearted shoemaker, whom they call their only friend. The blow further hardens them, leading to a chilling conclusion.

Despite the film’s artistry, it is an emotionally draining and disturbing experience. The message of man’s inhumanity during war is powerful, but it is hardly a new message. And the point of telling it in this way — through children transformed into monsters — is not clear. 

‘The Notebook’

Running time: 1:50

Opens Friday at Plaza Frontenac Cinema