A nagy Füzet 2013

John Anderson, Wall Street Journal: Szasz keeps the kids at such an emotional distance that even their notebook -- in which their father has commanded they commit everything they do, and think - does little to generate much emotional investment. Read more

Benjamin Mercer, AV Club: Not a shred of human decency is on display in The Notebook, a handsomely made, hard-to-endure World War II parable set in an unnamed Hungarian backwater during the Nazi occupation of 1944. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The relentless calamity becomes a grind, offering few insights beyond ones that are obvious in the first half hour. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Thoroughly unpleasant and at the same time completely unedifying. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Alternately powerful and perplexing. Read more

Martin Tsai, Los Angeles Times: This cautionary tale certainly has a chilling and timely message of how wars make monsters out of innocent people. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: Straddling nihilism and a moral fastidiousness so "pure" it flirts with the very fascism it means to critique, The Notebook cedes not one solitary inch to humanism. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Director Janos Szasz's sense of atmosphere is suitably chilling, but that's undermined by a lack of focus and broad-stroke portrayals. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: "The Notebook" is a skillfully made movie, with sequences that may haunt you after you leave the theater. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: A bleak, despairing testament to the cruelty of war, and how it mangles and defaces everyone it touches. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: By the end, you may feel exhausted by the parade of horrors. But veteran Hungarian director Janos Szasz has the courage of his convictions, refusing to provide breathing room or false optimism. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Not a movie for those who insist on happy resolutions, "The Notebook" is instead a study in how the nihilistic worldview that clouds the collective Eastern Europe sensibility came to be. Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: In adapting the novel, Szasz and screenwriters Tom Abrams and Andras Szeker tread carefully, leaving a lot to the imagination ... Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Though it features no battle scenes, The Notebook shines a powerful, unflinching light on the horrors of World War II. Read more

Nick Schager, Village Voice: [A] sobering wartime drama ... Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: If only I could figure out what all this was meant to stand for. Read more