Varjú is a truck driver. One day he picks up a stunning hitchhiker who is on her way to Balatonboglár. Later on he cannot get the girl out of his mind, he spends all his time searching for the blonde hitchhiker while Zsozsó, who is madly in love, is at home waiting for him. The Kangaroo was one of the big hits of the 1970s, racking up a cinema audience of more than 1.8 million. It perfectly encapsulates the restless mood of the seventies when young people dressed in tight denim and listening to rock ‘n’ roll longed for all things western.
Tag: HUNGARY
István Szabó reveals a lesser-known side to the public in this work, which strings together eight shorts of Budapest into a single movie. In the piece interpretable as a declaration of love addressed to the capital there are numerous motifs that are also to be found woven through the director’s major features, first and foremost Szerelmesfilm (Love Film), Tűzoltó utca 25. (25 Fireman’s Street) and Budapesti mesék (Budapest Tales). Besides allowing the viewer to marvel at the cityscape from 50 years ago in a series of fast-moving images, the film is still primarily about Szabó’s Budapest: his observations, his impressions, his imagination.
The protagonist of this Kafkaesque tale receives a telegram ordering him to appear at his own execution at dawn on the following day. His acquaintances try to reassure him that it is all probably just an administrative error, but the Complaints Office has already closed for the day and it is impossible to discover the truth. The man finally decides that, after all, it is perhaps best if he does actually appear at the scaffold the following day. This final film by Miklós Erdély examines a most vexing subject using his inimitable experimental cinematic solutions.
Miklós Erdély, a leading exponent of Hungarian Neo-Avant-garde, made a major contribution to the burgeoning in Hungary of experimental filmmaking in the 1970s and 80s through his works created in the Balázs Béla Studio. In this film he asked people to recount dreams and then an attempt was made at playing out and reconstructing these dreams. The situations that arise in front of the lens pose questions for both psychology and epistemology.
One day is much like another: a man’s day, somewhere on the outskirts of the city, in a dilapidated room. The torment of getting up, trembling hands searching among empty one-liter bottles, a face snarling back from the mirror, the escape, a tattered jacket over his pajamas, a two-kilogram loaf of bread, burning liquor down his throat… At first glance, this day is no different from those that came before…
August 1962, and one day is much like the next. La Dolce Vita starring Anita Ekberg is playing in cinemas and apartment block janitor uncle Simon hosts the in-house morning radio show with news, advice and music. The Communist Youth League is organizing a competition. The winning team of the Talent Show can take part in the World Youth Meeting far away in Helsinki. Naturally, the winners have already been decided. This musical satire built on reworked hits and gags parodies both the Kádár system and those who look back on it with nostalgia.
The elderly Veronika who lives alone has two resolves. The first is to collect sufficient money through her own labour, to be able to visit her only living relative, her son, in London. The second is to start cultivating her long-neglected vineyard. The lady, who has suffered greatly over the years, works with stubborn will and quiet serenity to achieve the goals she has set herself. Imre Gyöngyössy and Barna Kabay’s lyrical, documentary-style film received numerous awards at international film festivals.
The protagonist of this psycho-thriller taking place in picturesque surroundings is a crazed station-master living in a dull village in the middle of nowhere. In both visual and audio forms, the suffocating short effectively juxtaposes the sunlit, peaceful landscape with the lunatic ramblings of the deranged man gradually rising to a wheezing roar. Post-impressionist static idylls and genre pictures of brilliant tones are counterpointed by nervously pulsating sequences moving at warp speed. This first short made by Tibor Bánóczki as a student of the animation department comprises oil paintings on cel sheets.