Les Carnets de Sándor

Sándor, an eighty-five year old Hungarian blacksmith, has methodically depicted the events of his life for the past fifty years. The whole Hungarian history is summoned forth as Sándor leafs through his notebooks and conjures up vignettes from the past fifty years: the new shoes fitted on the hooves of his neighbour’s horse, vineyards devastated by the cold, and records of his dreams. Sándor’s life encompasses both ends of the spectrum of his country’s history from the days of the Austro-Hungarian empire to the times of collectivisation. Collectivisation dealt Sándor a hard blow when his daughter chose to leave Hungary in 1956. He told her before she left : “when you are there, look at the Great Bear from time to time. I will do the same and think of you.” The story of this man no regime ever managed to crush is told by his grandson Mark, who was born in Switzerland.