Hungary,
1987, 126 min
Shown in 1988
CREDITS
- dir
-
Pál Schiffer, Bálint Magyar
- cam
-
Gábor Balog, Ferenc Káplár
- source
-
Hungarofilm, Bathoriutca 10, H-1054, Budapest, V. , Hungary, FAX: 1-153-1850
- premiere
-
U.S. Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Pál Schiffer in person.
OTHER
Magyar Stories is a spellbinding documentary that examines the impact of socialism on seven people who lived in the village of Dunapataj during the traumatic 1950s. The protagonists reveal themselves as heroes and villains in an historical drama none of them could control. An idealistic schoolteacher who converted to Stalinism describes how he prevented landed peasants and other “reactionary” elements from progressing in school. Driven from the district during the revolution, he becomes a disillusioned old man. A local drunk is the first to join the C.P., helps to loot the peasants, then becomes the most violent anti-communist in 1956. Later, he denies all. This portrait of deception is balanced by the integrity of the peasant who served as mayor during the revolution. His decency is rewarded by imprisonment during the reprisal following the revolution. One of the characters leaves Hungary in 1956 and becomes a successful restaurateur outside Washington, DC. He returns to Hungary to retire in 1983. With photos of Robert Dole and Elizabeth Taylor decorating his wall, he sits down at the piano to play “Love Me Tender.” While many Hungarian films have touched on the bloody events in 1956, this is the first to provide detailed accounts of the reprisals following the Soviet victory over the revolutionaries. Magyar Stories is the most daring film dealing with political history yet to emerge from Hungary.
—George Csicsery
FACTOID #180
According to the Chronicle’s Herb Caen, producer David O. Selznick’s ’last letter and last phone call were to [SFIFF administrator] Shirley Temple Black to whom he said, ’I can’t wait to see you at the Festival.’’ Selznick was the namesake for a series of awards at the San Francisco International.
