Full Description
WHY WASN'T HE THERE? portrays the interior life of Eva, a 13-year-old Jewish girl living in the Hungarian countryside in 1944. Based upon her actual diary, director Jeles uses Eva's point of view to relate the slow disintegration of her family and home and the increasing hostility of the world outside. Intercutting dream sequences - in which Eva imagines herself as the confidante of Dickens' David Copperfield - with episodes from her daily life, the film evokes the infectious vitality and charm of a young girl's consciousness despite her apprehensions of approaching disaster. This contemplative, cinematographic jewel of a film was a fitting commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the destruction of the Jewish community of Hungary.
