Géza Bereményi's European Film Award-winning cult film about a king of the black market who extorts and protects his family with a savage kind of love draws on memories of his own family. The protagonist barters not only with death, but with history itself. This he succeeds in doing on several occasions in the period from 1945 to 1956: having weathered the war with his cronies, he seizes control of the entire market, "buying out” his grandson with gold, first from the child's weak father, ...later from the jaws of death. With the communist takeover of power, this selfish value system vanishes, leaving only the "smoke of bars” as sung by Tamás Cseh. In 1956 the grandson is no longer able to save any lives with his grandfather's hoarded 'valuables.'
The film itself is one long dance: an absurd historical ballet photographed through the extreme lens of the grandson, which gives a sense not only of the era portrayed, but of the Kádár period, the "change of system” that swept it away and the latter's lack of perspective. All concerned perform at the peak of their powers: the 30-year-old Károly Eperjes playing the middle-aged Monori, Andorai as the dogsbody, Eszenyi as the hysterical daughter, Sándor Sőth as the Molotov cocktail thrower, and even the newly formed Pa-dö-dő duo who sing film director Gábor Ferenczi to his death.
Our visitors are kindly informed that this film will be screened in Hungarian.
Presented by: Palace of Arts, MaNDA
Parking information
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