Fateless is a thought-provoking and profoundly moving journey of a young Hungarian Jewish teenager, Gyuri Kova, who passes through three Nazi concentration camps during WWII. Based on the 1975 novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Imre Kertesz, this film is a semi-autobiographical glimpse at Kertesz's own experiences.

Plucked from the bus on his way to work, 14-year-old Gyuri joins the hundreds of other Jewish citizens rounded up for deportation from his home town of Budapest. Queueing patiently for the freight train that will take them to the camps - some believing that they will be treated well or with respect - the film is a startling insight into how ignorant the Jewish community was to the horrors that awaited them, and how rumour and hearsay enabled the Nazi's to incarcerate and kill so many, with such little resistance.

On their way to Buchenwald camp, they are first taken to the infamous Auschwitz. As their packed freight car passes the opening to the camp, Gyuri and his fellow passengers struggle to pronounce the name of the camp that today stands as a symbol of torture and suffering.

At Buchenwald, Gyuri is left alone in the mud and chaos while the audience plays witness to his gradual loss of weight, and his childhood. Thrown into the thick of the Holocaust, he is subjected to hours of hard labour - scrabbling for his food amid sickness, weakness and humiliation. When he discovers his bunkmate dead, his hunger forces him to tell no one, and he remains sleeping beside his dead friend for days in order to get his food rations. At other times inmates are forced to stand on grotesque parades in the rain for hours on end, swaying with exhaustion and sickness, whilst trying to retain some semblance of dignity in the face of barbarity.

Unlike films of its genre, Fateless does not focus on sensationalist or shock-inducing imagery. Instead of moving from one horrendous anecdote to another, a more measured and gradual picture is built. The distance and separation of the tone allows audiences to witness for themselves the emotional and psychological impact the concentration camp had on both the boy, and the community as a whole.

Beautifully shot in small vignettes, the film moves at a brisk pace whilst retaining a slow, almost deadpan narrative and tone - offering audiences a blank canvas on which to paint their own emotions and reactions. The uncomplicated poise and inexpressive manner adopted by Marcell Nagy (Gyuri Koves) provides a useful vehicle through which audiences can witness the horror, and at times the beauty, of his experiences.

Not for the faint-hearted, this is the sort of film that will stay with you after you have seen it. Take a friend with whom you enjoy dissecting films, and plenty of tissues.