I notice in one of the reviews, that someone wondered why the old woman's name was not called during the roundup. The answer is that the roundup was obviously being done alphabetically in more than one shift, due to limited space I presume. The woman's name begins with "L" and the last name called that time was "Katz". She was obviously bound to be called the next shift.
shareNo, I believe Tono ponders earlier in the plot that his brother-in-law didn't send Mrs. Lautmann the notification of transport in order to force Tono either to give Mrs. Lautmann over to the Hlinka Guards voluntarily (and become a collaborator), or to attempt to hide Mrs. Lautmann, so he could get rid of Tono (as a White Jew). Or maybe the officials simply forgot about her, it's Slovakia, not Germany, you know :)
shareWell - you might be correct. But I distnictly recall them calling a name that started with "K" just before she went off and died, and also shortly before they loaded up the trucks and took off for the day.
shareThat's pretty sharp noticing the alphabetical order or the names called (I didn't pick up on that-have to watch for it next time), but I think Uncle-Istvan is right. Tono was set up. They realized that he didn't really like the Party, so they put him in a position where he had to either become one of them (by turning in his benefactress and thereby acknowleging the Party as his benefactor) or openly oppose them and suffer the consequences.
shareYou might both be right; certainly there's plenty of indications that the guy is a dupe. He's a rather simple-mined fellow from the start, although likeable in his way. The best thing about the film (for me) is that it shows a rather ordinary man being tested by the worst of situations, and there's no easy heroics on his part even at the very end. The woman's death lets him "off" a tough spot, but he has to live with the existing horror and his realization that he was only slightly better than those who would have slaughtered her. It's a marvelous bit of film-making, maybe the best I saw this year. Still, I DID notice the alphabetical call-out, and I wonder why it happened. Still - a minor point given all the treasures of cinematography, dialogue, acting, and morality in this masterpiece.
sharePerhaps I can shed just a bit of light - I am the author's (Ladislav Grosman)son :-) and was there when the film got the Oscar, though I was only about 11 or 12 years old. If I recall correctly, the idea was that Mrs. Lautman's name not being called was an oversight. Like someone else here said: this was Slovakia, not Germany. She simply wasn't on the list - but naturally, there's no way for Tono to know this.
Incidentally, the book was published by Doubleday but is no longer in print. The movie is out on DVD (Criterion) and it's a marvelously clean copy.
Thank you for the information, which (in its way) confirms me in my impression of the scene: that the exclusion was not part of some scheme by the protagonist's broher-in-law, but a bit of bureaucratic nonsense. From what I recall, the alphabetic calling of names (in the film) ceased just before the old woman's name would have been called, but it might have been just an oversight. Well - at any rate - the film is a magnificent piece, and easily the best film I saw this last year. Unless Ben Affleck was in something I cannot now recall seeing!
sharethat's a joke, right? yeah, it had to be...
shareWell, I was actually favoring the idea that Tono was set up by the authorities and his brother-in-law in order to make that choice between becoming one of them and being revealed as a 'White Jew', as someone already said in this thread. I still think that this path has a lot more weight than the one in which a simple bureaucratic mistake is made.
The scene in which Tono sees the wagons beginning to move was dramatic enough to carry on a quality of conclusion; it seemed to say 'it is over now, this train has left', so that might dismiss the idea that there would be another shift leaving town. This was also the point in which Tono, actually happy that he wouldn't be forced into a choice, resolved that his only further option was to help the widow. This external event regained him his human dignity.
However, I believe that the actual reason is irrelevant. The beauty and the sheer intensity of the movie's last scenes didn't rest upon what really happened with her name not being called, but upon what Tono had believed was going on. The movie's purpose was to convey the psychological struggle of the simple man when placed between the hammer and the nail, when asked to choose between his life and his humanity. So, for the purpose of the movie, it is highly important that Tono believed he was going to be shot by the Fascists as a 'White Jew', not what was actually going to happen to him. And the movie is very clear in defining what was happening in Tono's mind.