Zoltán Fábri

  • Zoltán Fábri – Húsz óra AKA Twenty Hours (1965)

    Zoltán Fábri1961-1970DramaHungary
    Húsz óra (1965)
    Húsz óra (1965)

    “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 »

  • Zoltán Fábri – Dúvad AKA The Brute (1961)

    Zoltán Fábri1961-1970DramaHungary
    Dúvad (1961)
    Dúvad (1961)

    A landowning farmer busies himself in his free time by bedding down the women on his farm and then tossing them aside. The farmer does not reform his ways and is soon chasing after the young manager’s wife, the woman he dropped not that long ago. The results are disastrous.Read More »

  • Zoltán Fábri – Hangyaboly AKA Ant-Hill (1971)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaHungaryQueer Cinema(s)Zoltán Fábri
    Hangyaboly (1971)
    Hangyaboly (1971)

    The head of the nunnery is dying, and the members are divided in two groups as the election of the new head approaches. Led by Virginia, the younger nuns stand up for changing the strict religious dogmas and would like a modern school with genuine science, a bathroom to be built, and a freer spirit. Their candidate is sister Magdolna, who went to secular universities, too. The seminarists, led by Király Erzsi, also rebel against the older nuns’ strict discipline and the depressed atmosphere of the institution. However, Magdolna does not want to stay involved in the fight because she is deterred by Virginia’s sinful attraction towards her and the tools Virginia is using to gain victory at any price.Read More »

  • Zoltán Fábri – Dúvad AKA The Brute (1961)

    Zoltán Fábri1961-1970ArthouseDramaHungary
    Dúvad (1961)
    Dúvad (1961)

    The setting is the countryside, where an independent, landowning farmer busies himself in his free time by bedding down the women on his farm and then tossing them aside. One such ill-treated lass ends up marrying a young man who is in charge of a communal farm, a farm the womanizing “beast” of the title is later forced to join. The arrogant, formerly independent farmer does not reform his ways and is soon chasing after the young manager’s wife, the woman he dropped not that long ago.Read More »

  • Zoltán Fábri – Fábián Bálint találkozása Istennel AKA Balint Fabian Meets God (1980)

    Zoltán Fábri1971-1980DramaHungary

    Fábri linked two József Balázs novels. The Bálint Fábián story depicts the bitter peasant existence of the father of the protagonist of Hungarians with a profundity and power similar to sociographic literature of the 1930s.

    Bálint Fábián is killing people on the Italian front in 1918. At home, his sons strangle the priest who is the lover of their mother. On returning from the front, instead of discovering a robust wife Bálint finds a deranged woman. He is to be the carriage driver for the baron but during the ‘white terror’ he showed solidarity with his fellow labourers, and he returns to his sons as a shepherd. His wife dies, his sons abandon him…Read More »

  • Zoltán Fábri – Gyertek el a névnapomra AKA Housewarming (1983)

    Drama1981-1990CrimeHungaryZoltán Fábri

    Zoltan Fabry’s last movie is based on Ferenc Karinthy’s play “Housewarning”. The economical and political stakeholders of a small town come together in a luxury villa on a name day celebration. Everything starts as usual, but this time an incident disrupts the men’s festivities. Andrea Bíró, accompanied by her boyfriend, announces to her father, the director of the local Iron Works, that she wants to leave home. The father shots the boy in his quick anger. The attendants adjust the incident as an accident, but a local newspaper-writer, Luca Péteri, begins an investigation in the case, despite the obstacles and lethal threads.Read More »

  • Zoltán Fábri – Hannibál tanár úr AKA Professor Hannibal (1956)

    1951-1960ClassicsDramaHungaryZoltán Fábri

    Zoltan Fabri’s 1956 Hungarian feature about the persecution of an educator (played for both laughs and great pathos by Ernö Szabó) whose essay about Hannibal and the Punic Wars in a school bulletin is deemed unflattering to the Mussolini regime. A beautifully shot, modest masterpiece which is, as the cliche goes, as timely today as ever.Read More »

  • Zoltán Fábri – Körhinta AKA Merry-Go-Round (1956)

    1951-1960DramaHungaryZoltán Fábri

    In a rural scenery in the throes of difficult changes lives a humble but promising young farmer girl called Mari Pataki. Her father forbids her from seeing the man she loves. The father, above all preoccupied by work on the fields and prospective wealth, decides to give his daughter in marriage to an old but rich man with whom he does business. Land marries land, he says. This seems to be the unyielding rule of the Hungarian peasantry. But the young lover is ready to stand up to any challenge to keep Maris love.Read More »

  • Zoltán Fábri – 141 perc a befejezetlen mondatból AKA 141 Minutes from the Unfinished Sentence (1975)

    1971-1980DramaHungaryZoltán Fábri

    Quote:
    This lavishly spectacular film focuses on the character of Lorinc Parcen Nagy from the 1200-page Tibor Déry novel interwoven with numerous autobiographical elements.

    Lorinc Parcen Nagy is the offspring of an upper middle class family, whose life is marked by two violent deaths: the suicide of his father and the slaughter of an innocent worker. He breaks with his family and his mother in disgust; she is of weak character, a person who abandoned her own husband. He is also unable to discover the right tone with his colleagues and his lover who is an illegal party worker.Read More »

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