Pál Sándor

Synopsis:
In this refreshing film, Pál Sándor takes the viewer into a girls’ educational institute from the turn of the century. The life of the closed community revolves around strict rules and regularly repeated humiliations, that is, until Emília Odor (Ildikó Szabó) turns up as a new student. Her stubborn, freedom-seeking, rebellious personality thoroughly upsets the well-worn relations. Pál Sándor, director of Régi idők focija/Football of the Good Old Days, Szabadíts meg a gonosztól/Deliver Us from Evil, Ripacsok/Salamon & Stock Show and Szerencsés Dániel/Daniel Takes a Train, once again utilizes his brilliant light touch to sketch out the mood and milieu of a given age, creating heroes with whom it is a pleasure to identify even though they are destined for a tragic fate.Read More »

„By the middle of the 70s, partly due to television, Hungarian films had lost much of their audience. The allure of disguised social criticism – one of the secret reasons why Hungarian films were so successful at foreign festivals – started to wear off. After 1968 social criticism became pointless. The first director to open up towards the audience (along with Zoltán Fábri) was Pál Sándor. Mourning the loss of left-wing ideals of freedom he recreated the illusion of a past community. The audience responded to his grotesque, nostalgic tone and the stories where the emphasis was always placed on the microclimate of human relationships. His “retro-films” were rich in self-irony. He never analysed and never criticised, he just told a story, created a poignant atmosphere and passionate characters. (Szeressétek Odor Emíliát – Love Emilia! 1968, Régi idők focija – Football of The Good Old Days 1973, Herkulesfürdői emlék – A Strange Role 1976, Szabadíts meg a gonosztól – Deliver Us from Evil 1978).Read More »

A Hungarian masterpiece from Sándor Pál.

The film’s story take place in Budapest, in 1944 in the very end of the 2nd WW. The film’s photographer, Elemér Ragályi won prize in Montreal in 1979. Montreal, 1979.

PLOT DESCRIPTION
In this very dark comedy, the loss of a coat from a dance hall cloakroom sets off a frantic search which results in widespread death and mayhem. It is 1944, and the loss of the coat represents the family’s loss of social standing, even during a time when everyone is suffering from the Nazi occupation. The whole family is called in to search for it, and a cross-section of the social chaos of the times is exposed during their search, which involves murders and more. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideRead More »