Opening today at the West Newton Cinema is another gleaming find from the discerning people at Menemsha Films. “Those Who Remained” is a 2019 Hungarian drama set in postwar Budapest, where Jewish survivors try to move forward with their lives however traumatized they have been. Aladar “Aldo” Korner (a fine Karoly Hajduk) is a 42-year-old gynecologist, whose wife and children died in the camps. When we meet him, he is treating 16-year-old Klara Weiner (a marvelous Abigel Szoke). Klara is so devastated by the loss of her family that she pretends they moved away and left her behind with her hopeless and similarly damaged Aunt Olgi (Mari Nagy). Aldo is tall, gaunt and wears his fedora at a rakish tilt. Hajduk would make a fine screen Dracula. He has a courtly demeanor and something dark perched behind his eyes. Szoke’s Klara is an unruly, inconsolable and also attractive girl. She gets her period, which she deems “disgusting.” She hates everything, including such postwar deprivations as “lemon substitute,” and wants to fail at school. She could end up in an asylum.

Directed by the shortlisted filmmaker Barnabas Toth, making his feature debut, co-written by him and based on a 2003 novel by Zsuzsa Varkonyi, “Those Who Remained” features smoky lighting by Gabor Marosi. The film does not show us any death camps or victims. It focuses solely on the living. Klara, who is very intelligent, is a wreck. In addition to going through puberty, she has lost everything and everyone. She is failing at her classes. Olgi is powerless to do anything to help and at the end of her wits. The girl seeks out the paternal Aldo, finds where he lives – alone – and spends more and more time with him. He for his part visits the city’s Jewish orphanage, carrying a big sack of gifts, toys and sporting equipment that he has collected. He’s the slender Santa. He encourages Klara to go to the orphanage and arrange to teach German classes. Their lives become intertwined. Klara begins spending nights at Aldo’s place. Aldo and Olgi agree to share custody of Klara and see what happens.

It is certainly an arrangement that many would find inappropriate. But it is chaste (although not without temptation), and it seems to suit these two survivors. They have dinner together. Klara enjoys Hungarian pastries known as “mignons.” She can even have two. They go to the cinema. Her favorite writer is Thomas Mann, the author of “Buddenbrooks,” “Death in Venice” and “Joseph and His Brothers.” Aldo interviews Klara’s teachers to get a better sense of her problems at school. He helps with her homework. He’s being a father, again. Eventually, Aldo invites Klara to look at albums of photos he cannot bring himself to look at: his wedding, his pregnant wife, their children.

Aldo’s loss becomes much more vivid for Klara and for us. Klara goes to a dance, leaving Aldo alone and a bit jealous. At Aldo’s birthday, Klara tries to teach an ungainly Aldo to dance. Hungary experiences “Stalinisation” and people begin to denounce one another. A colleague confesses to Aldo that he has been invited to inform on him. People are arrested and taken from their homes in the night. Aldo meets a patient, a spark ignites. The film jumps ahead three years to 1953 and ends with a dinner party. Does life go on? Both heartlessly and with the tantalizing glimmer of future happiness, it does.

(“Those Who Remained” contains mature themes)

Not Rated. In Hungarian and German with subtitles. At the West Newton Cinema.