During a film course lead by Yvette Biró at the Hungarian Academy of Drama and film in 1995, the director students were shown a black-and-white photo taken by Lucien Herve in 1952, and they were given the task of writing a short film based on it. Three women are standing at the outskirts of a village, looking out of the picture in the same direction. This six-minute one-shot film shows what the Herve photo does not.
Tag: HUNGARY
A lyrical and yet at the same time passionate ‘situation report’ on the living conditions of Hungarian Gypsies. With this, his first significant work, Sándor Sára, who went on to become one of the most influential figures in Hungarian film as both cinematographer and director, aimed not only to document but also to take a standpoint on this critical topic. The exposition of the film determines the context: newspaper articles and socio-photos reporting on the plight of the Roma, listing numbers and statistics, and in the follow-on Sára depicts the problem through motion pictures.
A focus on the tormented lives of intellectuals who failed to protest recent troubles in their homeland. Jancsó emphasizes highly evocative and ambiguous imagery over dialog or exposition as he – through visually fascinating imagery – depicts the painful, stunted lives of Hungary’s intellectuals who have remained silent and ineffectual during various political crises.
In the final days of the American Civil War, an emigre Hungarian military officer attempts to map the situation of the enemy. Many veterans of the 1848 War of Independence in Hungary fought on the northern side. Experienced Fiala, Boldogh who struggles with homesickness and the reckless Vereczky all experience their enforced emigration in different ways and news of impending peace elicits different reactions from them all. Gábor Bódy’s film is a thoroughly experimental work, constantly surprising and disorienting the viewer, posing serious questions, with a unique style of expression and perspective.
Csöre is a 7-year-old orphan girl living in unbearable circumstances in rural Hungary during the 1920s. The poverty-stricken Dudás couple only take in the little ‘waif’ in return for the placement fee they receive from the orphanage, while the wealthy Szennyes family use her as a domestic servant. Fate is equally hard on her in both places. It would appear that there is no end to the humiliations the innocent child has to bear. László Ranódy adapts for film the classic novel by Zsigmond Móricz, with shattering effect.
Csaba has just come out of doing a stint in prison because he stabbed a man while drunk, and when he goes home he discovers that his wife is now living with someone else in their apartment. Csaba quickly divorces his wife but he still has to move in and share a kitchen and bathroom with her and her new mate, suffering because he still loves her. This untenable situation is complicated by visits from Csaba’s mother, and by various women he starts seeing, as well as by a busy-body neighbor. The three main roles of Csaba, his wife, and her lover are excellently interpreted in this satire on social morés and economic realities.
Sándor Sára’s short experimental film juxtaposes pitiful war memorials against actual footage from the First World War. Thus, by exploiting the power of montage, the absurdity of celebrating war is brought to the fore along with the tragedy of how ordinary people are manipulated by ideologies and then despatched to the slaughterhouse. Pro Patria can be viewed as the overture in Sára’s film series on war, in which he does not yet apply the medium of the ‘talking heads’ documentary but instead the montage art form in order to dig deep into the subject: the tragic truth of the individual sent off to battle.
Intrigue and deceit in medieval Hungary, with spectacular choreography by Miklós Jancsó. Gáspár, the youngest scion of the ruling family, returns home from Italy and discovers he is destined to be crowned king. However, the path to the throne is convoluted and in the death dance around the court nobody can escape their fate. Ninetto Davoli, known from Pasolini films, also plays an important role alongside László Gálffi, while József Madaras and György Cserhalmi similarly excel in this carnival-like allegory mixed with pantomime.