Zoltán Latinovits

  • András Kovács – Hideg napok AKA Cold days (1966)

    1961-1970András KovácsDramaHungary

    Set in 1946, this movie deals with the planning and execution of the January, 1942 Novi Sad massacre of 4,000 Yugoslavian Serbs and Jews by Hungarian army units. It was undertaken as a reprisal for a partisan ambush (in which 17 soldiers were gunned down). And it is mainly explored through the reminiscences of four participants–Major Buky, Lieutenant Tarpataki, Ensign Pozdor, and Corporal Szabonow–cell-mates awaiting trial. Ultimately, however, what you get is an extended debate over issues of individual responsibility.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 »

  • György Révész – Utazás a koponyám körül AKA Trip Around My Cranium (1970)

    1961-1970ComedyFantasyGyörgy RévészHungary

    Quote:
    A thoroughly original, delightful comedy with serious undertones, this film is based upon the writings of a famous Hungarian journalist, Frigyes Karinthy. Karinthy, who, in his later years, suddenly became afflicted with a brain tumor, wrote a humorous novel about his thoughts during his illness. A Journey Around My Skull is not only a description of the illness and the great medical adventure of the writer, a strange, constantly unbalanced manner of life, but blends in several characteristics of Karinthy’s earlier works. The writer (played by Latinovits, who won the Best Actor Award at the recent San Sebastian Film Festival for his role here) is placed in pre-war Budapest, during the 1930s, and, while seated in his favorite cafe one day, he hears the roaring of trains. Read More »

  • Zoltán Huszárik – Szindbád AKA Sinbad (1971)

    1971-1980ArthouseHungaryZoltán Huszárik

    Quote:
    Adapted from the short stories of Gyula Krúdy, a beloved Proustian author of the Magyars, Szindbád is an autumnal, reflective, and poetic film set during fin de siècle Hungary, and centers on a dying libertine’s thoughts and memories. Although named after the character in One Thousand and One Nights, Szindbad is more of a wilting Casanova. A womanizer and a gourmand, he both regrets and revels in his past pursuits of the flesh and stomach. Counter to the long shot, long take aesthetic that’s the default mode for European art cinema then and now, Huszárik—a graphic artist and painter as well—opts for montage editing. Haptic inserts, rich in sensuality and eroticism, of water droplets, globules of food oil, and blooming flowers, are counterpoised with the film’s melancholic tone channeled through Szindbád. A life lived purely for pleasure never seemed so gloomily romantic.Read More »

  • Miklós Jancsó – Csend és kiáltás AKA Silence and Cry (1968)

    1961-1970ArthouseDramaHungaryMiklós Jancsó

    Quote:
    Miklós Jancsó’s Silence and Cry is set during a turbulent era of disquiet, fear, persecution and terror, which permeates every corner of post-WWI Hungarian society. In 1919, after just a few months of communist rule the Hungarian Republic of Councils falls victim to a nationalist counter-revolution. Admiral Horthy, leader of the nationalist far right movement, becomes the self-proclaimed regent of Hungary, and assumes power as the legal Head of State. Soldiers of the short-lived Hungarian Red Army are now on the run from relentless secret policemen and patrol units of the nationalist Royal Gendarme.Read More »

  • Miklós Jancsó – Szegénylegények AKA The Round-Up (1966)

    1961-1970ArthouseDramaHungaryMiklós Jancsó

    Set in a detention camp in Hungary 1869, at a time of guerrilla campaigns against the ruling Austrians, Jancsó deliberately avoids conventional heroics to focus on the persecution and dehumanization manifest in a time of conflict. Filmed in Hungary’s desolate and burning landscape, Jancsó uses his formidable technique to create a remarkable and terrifying picture of war and the abuse of power that still speaks to audiences today.Read More »

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