by Clarke Fountain
synopsis
The unremitting horror of the brutalized life of a poor orphan is shown in this film. Set in the Hungarian countryside in the 1930s, it tells the story of an 8-year-old orphan who has never known her parents. In a common practice, she is hired out to a farmer for fostering. With tough insensitivity, he takes away her only clothing so that she will not escape, and sets her to tending the cows entirely naked. When she does escape, she is returned to the orphanage, which ships her out to an even more unwelcoming situation.
