Hungarian Movie Nights in Tartu

Kristóf Deák's drama "Prisoners" ("Foglyok", 2019).

Az absurd historical psycho thriller - if there is such a genre, that's where this film belongs.

It takes place in the early 1950s, when Hungary's version of Stalinism seems invincible, with tens of thousands arrested, deported or tried on bogus charges, so that 'doorbell-ringing' is a daily experience. The regime is predictably unpredictable, foolishness and the jingoistic mentality prevail, so that even the most absurd cases could not be said to be beyond the pale - even the next real-life events would immediately disprove that claim. It even happens that security forces come but does not take anyone away, but waits. What kind of trouble can we fantasise and even believe about our own family and friends when we are surrounded by a dictatorship that does not give us information, but imprisons us and demands that we blame and look for the guilty? Is it enough to believe that we have done nothing wrong in order to keep our sanity? Perhaps we can find the answer in this deadly funny film.

"The Revolt of Job" ("Jób lázadása", 1983)

This lyrical Holocaust film abandons the stereotypes associated with the Holocaust, showing no camps, no SS soldiers and no death traps. Instead, we see an ordinary Hungarian village, where Iiob the sheepherder and his wife Róza live and work, just like everyone else in the village. Except that they are Jews, and the year is 1943. Job suspects bad things, the laws are getting tougher and tougher, the gendarmes are behaving more and more antagonistically, and at the fair they are already openly singing songs about killing Jews. Moreover, he is being punished by God: he has not been given any offspring, and all the seven children born to him are dead. But he himself does not want to disappear from this world, so that all his life's work, both material and spiritual, disappears with him.

Job rebels against God's will: he buys a Christian boy from the orphanage to be his heir, to give him everything that no one can take away from him, to teach him to be pure in nature, in love and in God, and even to wait for the Savior. They gradually become a family, and the abandoned boy experiences something new: what it is like to be loved. His childlike mouth gives the story a soft warmth, his childlike insight and tireless search for God a lyricism. They have been blessed with happiness for barely a year....

Directors: Imre Gyöngyössy, Barna Kabay

"Eldorado" ("Eldorádó", 1988)

During and after the war, staying on your feet as a simple market trader in Budapest is an art in itself. It requires the ability to throw money and gold into the game at the right time. Then comes socialism, where the moral is: what's yours is mine, but what's mine is none of your business. Before that, trading was straightforward: if I pay, I get, the exchange rate was clear for everyone. In its place, however, a new world is emerging, and a 'socialist type of man' is taking shape. And the new generation doesn't know how to do things anymore.

The story told in the film begins at the end of the Second World War and ends with the Hungarian revolution of 1956. But its main theme is not the violence of the regime against the individual, but the transformation of the people, the crises of values, and the changes of mentality that accompany the change of political regimes.

Director: Géza Bereményi

"The Two Lives of Aunt Mici" ("Mici néni két élete", 1963)

In the beginning of the 1960s, the Kádár regime tries to show tooth and nail that 'existing socialism' is the best of all possible regimes. There are still a few minor problems on the apartment front, but when a young couple and an old lady find each other and sign a maintenance contract, life really is perfect, and time will solve all the problems anyway.... But what happens if both parties break the terms of the agreement - the newlyweds are about to have a baby and the old lady is not going to die just yet, but will find a successor? Then a comedy of secrecy breaks out: the greatest actors of the age pretend on screen that all is well, life is carefree.

Director: Frigyes Mamcserov

"Bet on Revenge" ("Kincsem", 2017)

On the one hand, a romantic adventure, a costume drama set against the backdrop of historical events, with horses, love and flashing swords; on the other, an ironically interspersed emphatic fiction, with a light steam-punk Austro-Hungarian Romeo and Juliet touch.

And to keep the story from sounding boring, the palette also needs a touch of red, white and green national colour: it all starts with a fight for freedom, national and personal defeats, suppressed in the mid-19th century. Out of this situation grows the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, and a pro-Hungarian opposition for whom every Hungarian victory, however small, is a nationalistic nod to imperial power. What will happen when the invincible prodigy horse 'Kincsem' ('My Treasure') appears, before the whole world will bow! "Hungary is a barrel of gunpowder, and Kincsem is a spark from which everything can burst into flames."

The film about the Hungarian prodigy horse is so far both the most expensive and the most watched Hungarian feature film.

Director: Gábor Herendi