Erzsébet Bori

A Lean Year: The Hungarian Film Week 2003

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Péter Gothár's Magyar szépség (Hungarian Beauty) seems to be a fit into his string of films providing a grotesque depiction of public sentiments during the Kádár-era (Ajándék ez a nap/A Priceless Day, Megáll az idő/Time Stands Still, Idő van/Time). These are stories of the generation that had its eyes opened after 1956, caused the "youth problem" of the 1960's, grew up in the 1970's and 80's, established their families, began careers, more or less found their place, became disillusioned, embittered and cynical, and, after 1989, realised that they simply had no place in the Brave New World that everyone had been waiting for. Values and priorities changed, tried and tested methods of surviving and scraping by no longer work. People are dancing to a different tune, which they are simply unable to learn. They are still trying, struggling like a fly in the soup, coming out with plans and ideas, but find themselves brushed aside by the younger generations. Their only hope is that their children, soon to reach adulthood, will be able to provide for them.
Disillusionment, an almost ruthlessly critical voice are immediately apparent in Hungarian Beauty. Gothár portrays the young with gentle affection and a forbearing humour, but the best he can do for their parents is pity. The bittersweet comedy is not limited to the grotesque. Sometimes tending towards the absurd, sometimes to farce, it sketches a vivid and not exactly flattering portrait of the age.
If we had to name a newcomer whose arrival made the Festival worthwhile, it would be Benedek Fliegauf, with his Rengeteg (Forest). (He had made a name for himself a few years ago with Beszélő fejek (Talking Heads) and his minimalist short Hypnos. Fliegauf's invention, his trademark is a puritanical, authentic and true-to-life style, characteristic of documentaries. The plot is entirely fictional, but it unfolds within the framework of a documentary. Whether Fliegauf will be able to transpose the virtues of his shorts into a feature remains to be seen, since Forest is a compilation of seven loosely connected episodes, some superb and some not so superb. Nevertheless it is clear that Benedek Fliegauf shows some of the greatest promise in the new generation. His talent is confirmed by the fact that besides collecting two awards at the Festival (best newcomer, foreign critics' prize), he also received the newcomers' grand prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
Even if 2003 is something of a lean year, there are still enough promising productions for us to be able to say: film-making in Hungary is far from being dead and buried.

Erzsébet Bori
is the regular film critic of this journal.