Synopsis
Mother and Gábor, her 55 year old retarded son, have lived for each other for the past 40 years. She is dreading the thought of what would happen to her helpless son, when she, too, “travels to Grandma’s house.”
This happens sooner than expected, when Mother falls victim to a botched bank robbery, and Gábor becomes the only witness to identify the “Dutchman,” the mastermind behind the crime, who now wants him dead.
Gábor finds an unexpected ally in Jolie, a Gypsy prostitute in her twenties, who has gone from the Dutchman’s accomplice to his intended victim. Jolie, at first reluctantly, helps Gábor escape, and joins him on a desperate journey across the Hungarian border to Grandma’s house in Romania. Both of them are over their head in this adventure, and the Dutchman is not far behind. Yet, they receive help from the most unexpected people and places. Armed with a chandelier and a pair of beekeepers' masks, the odd pair finally reaches the mountain village where Grandma used to live. But the fairy-tale house is in ruins, and Grandma has joined her relatives in the abandoned Jewish cemetery long ago. She had lived on only in Gábor's stories and meticulous drawings. However, the world she lived in still has its echoes.
Uncle Feri, who has made the old Jewish cemetery his home, recognizes Gábor, and directs the wanderers to Grandma’s old restaurant, where they find temporary employment, Jolie waiting tables and Gábor creating vegetable sculptures and drawing uncanny portraits of passing tourists. Their lives regain some sense of order in this old/new world.
But the Dutchman remains on the prowl. With a cunning trick, he enlists an unwitting ally in the very detective in charge of investigating the bank robbery, who is also eager to track down the fugitives, and follows them to Romania.Balancing precariously on the edge between crude reality and fanciful imagination, our heroes manage to survive and, in the process, find peace with each other, the world, and ultimately, themselves.
