Hungary

The maverick Hollywood stylist André de Toth sharpened his craft in his native Hungary, including making this chic, dynamic melodrama, studded with deco decor and jazzy musical interludes. Two upwardly mobile working women—one a musician in an all-girl band, the other a bricklayer—join forces in their attempts to make it in Budapest, supporting each other through changing fortunes, the advances of lecherous men, and the highs and heartbreaks of love. Kinetic camera work, brisk editing, and avant-garde imagery abound in this often strikingly modern ode to the power of working-class female solidarity.Read More »

Synopsis: An aspiring film student is denied a scholarship to the state-funded university when his father is thrown in jail. The man had stopped a train in order to facilitate the union between two old friends. The son then takes a job as a land surveyor and meets a Greek man who works towards the collective benefits of the peasants. The man is killed in a peasant uprising prompted by a bureaucratic boondoggle. The surveyor looks after the man’s widow as his emerging political and social awareness leads him take a stand against government injustice. Another incident, in which gypsies are rounded up by state hygiene workers, further galvanizes the man’s beliefs. He photographs the incident, and his work allows him to be accepted into the school from which he was previously denied admission.Read More »

Teréz (Mari Törőcsik) has hit 40 and after her divorce she feels life to be empty and void of purpose. Although those around her do everything they can to help through these difficult times, she slips further into lethargy. This film by Gyula Maár is outstanding for accurately registering the tiniest of spiritual flickers, building on the acting sensibilities of Törőcsik and the incandescent intensity of Lajos Koltai’s camerawork.Read More »

Two actors wandered from house to house in the countryside in the roles of the photographer and the retoucher business man offering their photographic services to the people.Read More »

Synopsis: A talented but irresponsible violinist ruins his marriage with his drinking and antisocial behaviour.Read More »

PLOT: During WWII, a young Hungarian captured by the Soviets is left in the custody of a young Soviet soldier to assist him on a dairy farm.Read More »

A boy in Budapest loses his father in 1945, when he was the age of six. He does not remember much of the father but fantasizes that he performed various heroic feats.Read More »

Quote:
Respected 40-year-old neurosurgeon Márta meets fellow surgeon János at a conference and decides to leave her shining American career behind and return to Budapest to start a new life with him. But when they finally meet, János claims he and Márta have never previously met, let alone fallen in love.Read More »

“This is a fascinating, thought-provoking film which may be invaluable to anyone interested in the complexities of socialist Hungary. It takes the form of the (fictional) study of a single Hungarian village through interviews by a reporter, but the village is clearly an allegory for Hungary as a whole and the process through which the country passed from the beginning of socialism through to the aftermath of 1956. Because of its narrative structure and its level of sensitivity and sophistication it has the potential to be immensely informative; it is also a moving and disturbing film.”Read More »