The Fifth Seal 1976
In 1944 Budapest, one of a group of four friends poses a hypothetical moral question to the others, an act that will unexpectedly alter their lives forever.
In 1944 Budapest, one of a group of four friends poses a hypothetical moral question to the others, an act that will unexpectedly alter their lives forever.
In the dense and murky woodlands of provincial Hungary, the search for a child murderer drags a once-respected detective into an all-consuming obsession enshrouded by irresolution and despair, even long after he has been taken off the case. What emerges is not a crime story, but a harrowing venture through the darkness of the human soul.
This story follows a young student, who is orphaned as she grows to adulthood in the shadow of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. Coming from the Communist intelligentsia, she sees her friends and family react differently. Her lover, a married factory manager, supports the patriots and later assists fellow workers in staging a strike. Meanwhile her sister and others express anger at being forced from their homes during the revolution and continue to express a hatred for the rebels afterwards. But in the end they realize that for all people, real life is not possible after the revolt and its brutal suppression by the Soviets and their collaborators.
A woman and her lover plot to kill her older husband.
Áron is a happy child in his family. But at some point things take a different turn, and his mother starts to lose her health rapidly. As this happens, the man in charge decides what's best for Áron without consulting the young boy's opinion, and the boy finds himself thrown out of his warm home into an orphanage in the woods. He's utterly displeased by what's happening, without knowing he has yet to face much worse...
A young doctor undergoes a spiritual crisis when he returns to his rural home.
Szegedi Anna, a lawyer having just arrived back from Naples wants to divorce his husband, also a lawyer, because since a hot night she has only been thinking of Laczkó, the handsome businessman.
Kicsi Dániel, the young virtuoso pianist gets a separate apartment in the ten-storey block of flats. He rehearses all the time, irregularly, day and night, disturbing thus the peace of the dwellers in the thin-walled house. Inquisition begins in the name of equal rights for inhabitants.
A father tries to deal with his troubled son who is involved in a hit-and-run accident.
Vendel Imre is a driver, his wife is expecting a baby, they have two sons. Before 1945 Vendel was a military officer. In 1951 they receive a letter from the Ministry of Interior: they will be transported to a forced domicile, allowed to take 50 kg personal belongings per person with them.
Turn-of-the-century Hungary. Two young brothers, neglected by their cold and uncaring mother, descend deeper and deeper into psychosis, with tragic consequences.
An unsentimental Hungarian film about the edgy relationship between a middle-aged woman and her young, restless daughter-in-law when the son-husband goes to sea for six months.
This film, set at the beginning of the 17th century, is the first East-European "Eastern". Bocskai István orders the free Heyducks to shepherd a huge herd of cattle through the country torn to three parts, to the Dalmatian coast, where he can get weapons in exchange, for fighting the Austrians.
A story of a mother who had to change her profession from a teacher to a high class prostitute to make a living.
A Budapest high school in the beginning of the 1960s. Dini suffers the torments of adolescence. His father had to leave Hungary after the uprise in 1956, and since then Dini's mother has had to take care of her two sons on her own. A friend of Dini’s father, Bodor, is released from prison and moves in with them. Dini and his brother are far from happy about this intrusion on their family life.
It is 1989, the year of the demise of socialism in eastern Europe. Nevertheless, the one theme of Junk Movie does not refer to this historical moment of high ideals, quite the contrary, the wild, burlesque of a motif-mozaic seems merely to stick it’s tongue out at the arrogant players of politics who have their heads stuck in the clouds. The film rudely points out the mystery and unapproachability surrounding the every-day existence of politics. The scene is a greasy, falling-down block of a pub called the Gólya and its immediate surroundings.
Andras (Zygmunt Malanowicz), an older man employed as a furniture designer, gets a life-jarring shock when he returns from a trip and finds that some of the work he developed has been given over to a younger employee. This instigates a mid-life crisis over his own identity and his sense of security and self-worth, all exacerbated by a recent divorce and estrangement from his son. Recognizing that he needs help, the man goes for therapy and starts to face his problems. Therapy counteracts some of the damage of living, and the man starts to consider his son, his relationships with women, and his father in a different light.
Reviewers found this somewhat surreal film so visually stunning as to be worth watching even when it was not clear to them what was going on. In the story, Jozef Schrevek is a man with unusual powers which he wishes to pass on to his son before his death, which is coming soon. Unfortunately, his son is much more interested in boozing and womanizing and being a well-known habitué of nightclubs, than in taking his father seriously and receiving his powers and the responsibilities which come along with them. The tension between the two escalates when a young woman enters their lives.
The story largely centers on a grandfather who finds himself deeply depressed by the dramatic downward turns Bulgarian society has taken. The changes of the past half century have created a deep communications gap between generations and he is unable to communicate with his troubled son. Nor is the old man able to do much to help his grandson who is making his first forays into criminal life, blaming it all on his mother who admits she is incapable of loving him. The grandfather tires of life with the bleak family and so goes to an old folks home. But that proves repressive, so he and a couple of friends leave to enact a money-making scheme. When that fails, the old man finds himself alone and destitute on the rough streets of Sofia where his despairing eyes witness the further ruination of his homeland.
A former goldminer who has run afoul of the law is made an unusual offer by the mafia. The power of money and popularity among women won't let him step down from the rollercoaster in order to make the right decisions.