Erzsébet Bori
All in the Family
Réka Kincses: Balkan Champion
Colin Keith Gray & Megan Raney Aarons: Freedom's Fury
...
If there are two things for which Hungary
is best known, then they are Ferenc
Puskás, legendary member of the great
Hungarian football team of the early fifties
(who died as we were going to press)- and
the 1956 Revolution. What Freedom's Fury
seeks to do is to place the latter event in a
historical perspective, and if one were to try
and explain what 1956 meant (and means),
then one could not find a more apt vehicle
than sport for doing so. In their recollections,
those who took part frankly admit
that the last thing on their minds was
gaining political satisfaction from their
Russian opponents. To the extent that there
was a desire for revenge, that was more on
account of a not entirely deserved defeat
they had suffered earlier in the year at the
Spartakiad in Moscow, which had been followed by some brawling in the changing
rooms. The mood of the Olympics, which
was strongly affected by news of the
Hungarian Revolution and its brutal
suppression, changed everything. Despite
this being just a semi-final, and between
two European teams at that, the poolside
seating was jam-packed and the tension
stretched to breaking point: the spectators
were hoping to see blood. And that is what
they got- quite literally. In the last quarter,
after a long string of clashes and with the
Hungarians leading 4-0, the match had to
be suspended, because one of the Russians
had thrown such a wild punch at Ervin
Zádor that it split his eyebrow. Blood was
pouring out of the wound and staining the
water red.
Now, water polo is no game for the
faint-hearted. It is a tough struggle of
bodies against one another on the surface,
and even more underwater, with serious
injuries far from rare. Since it is not widely
known in America, the film-makers have
gone to some trouble, with typical Hollywood
thoroughness, to help the audience
by showing how the scoring works,
what tactics are employed, the training
techniques, and even the history of
Hungarian success in the sport, all of which
is illustrated by wonderful archival footage.
The film is equally systematic about
dealing with the '56 Revolution, where it
certainly helps to have some knowledge of
the background, and particularly how,
after the Second World War, Hungary
came to be bundled up with other allied or
conquered Eastern European countries
as satellites of the Soviet Union. Reference
is therefore made to the beginnings of
the Cold War, Stalin's death in 1953
and the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet
Communist Party (at which Khrushchev
first admitted to Stalin's crimes) as
important milestones on the way to
the Hungarian uprising. After that, from
October 23rd on, the viewer tracks the events in Budapest day by day, with a
superimposed counter at the bottom of the
screen showing the countdown in days to
the opening of the Olympics Games.
Mention is made of the Suez Crisis too,
which many Hungarians feel played a part
in the crushing of their revolution, with Khrushchev turning a blind eye to what
France and Britain were up to in Egypt and,
in return, being given a free hand in
Hungary. The defeat of the revolution and
the ensuing retribution, however, were
epilogues to the grand victories that were
won in the swimming pool and on the
battlefield of freedom. In regard to the
latter, of course, history is still being
written- right up to 1989, the year when
most of Eastern Europe regained its liberty and the year of the Tian'anmen Square
massacre, an experience the brother-andsister
team of Colin Keith Gray and Megan
Keith Raney and their age-group shared.
Back in 1956, quite a few of the water
polo team did not return home, and it
was only in 2000 that they had a reunion, in which they were joined by four Russian
veterans of the notorious "bloodbath".
Apart from reconciliation, the get-together
in Budapest gives an opportunity to show
off the Hungarian capital at its best, from
the banks of the Danube to splendidly
restored atmospheric Turkish baths, from
Buda Castle to one of the luxury hotels. To
cut a long story short, what Freedom's Fury
shows is Hungary Hollywood style, in its
best clothes and at its most alluring.
Translated by
Erzsébet Bori
is the regular film critic of this journal.
