Through the cooperation of the Palace of Arts and the Hungarian National Digital Archive and Film Institute (MaNDA), this new series will present the finest works of legendary Hungarian film directors. The first half of the year sees digital screenings of a selection of ten films from the life’s oeuvre of Zoltán Fábri. Although the three-time Kossuth Prize-winner Zoltán Fábri occupied pride of place in the display case of Socialist cultural policy, his work as a film director (1952-1983) was de...fined by the banning of his screenplays, so that he conveyed his humanist message about the world, dictatorship and human relationships in a series of literary adaptations that reached an audience of millions. Although he was essentially not an innovator in terms of the language of film, few directors would have as many powerful sequences in a hypothetical reel of the great symbolic moments in modern Hungarian film – from the dramatic merry-go-round scene in Körhinta (1955) to the vacant building site in A Pál utcai fiúk (1968), and from the expressive stadium in Hannibál tanár úr (1956) to Zoltán Latinovits’s major absurdly packing boxes in Isten hozta, őrnagy úr (1969). Back in 1963, István Örkény wrote a film novella for Zoltán Fábri about the major who packs boxes, entitled Csend van (It’s Quiet). Fábri did not find the work sufficiently striking in this form, however. Örkény thus developed the story into a short novel, from which he was commissioned to write a play by Károly Kazimir, the manager of the Thália Theatre. Premièred in 1967 with Zoltán Latinovits in the leading role, The Tóth Family became a huge success. In turn, Fábri reworked the play to fashion a realist “human fable” from the Second World War story, with the cooperation of Iván Darvas as narrator. In his reading, nothing in Hungarian history is more absurd than the reality itself. “With the selection of actors and the milieu, Fábri very quickly decided that his film would not be in the manner of Tati (Mon Oncle, 1958) or in the Czech style (Black Peter, 1964). If it had to follow a genre, let it be a comedy!” (József Marx). As far as the plot is concerned, he nervously exhausted Major (Latinovits) is spending his leave with the parents of a favourite subordinate. For the son’s sake, mother and daughter generously comply with the Major’s peculiar requests, and Ági (Vera Venczel) even ends up falling in love with him… However, the esteemed fire chief (Imre Sinkovits) resists the Major’s aggressive ways in the name of human dignity. In his final rebellion, he cuts the Major into four pieces with the latter’s favourite tool, the box cutter…. something which the viewer would already have done half-way through the film, since – unlike the Tóths – we know that the son had already perished at the front… Presented by: Palace of Arts
Parking information
We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.
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