Jozsef Madaras Movies

Without apparent connections between them, the maker of this experimental film alleges that there is a story in the series of incidents which punctuate this movie, aside from the fact that they all take place in a rural village. In one, Children explore their sexual feelings together; in another, a married man and his wife have a tiff and then make love, but then the wife is found dead. Coming in from the city by hitchhiking, a young man is visiting his mother for the summer. All these potentially related stories are interspersed with scenes from a black-and-white African documentary. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Basically another variation of Ten Little Indians with a werewolf thrown in for good measure, this plodding sequel refers less to previous Howling installments than to the source novels by Gary Brandner. The stage is set at an ominous Romanian castle, where the ancestors of a legendary werewolf bloodline committed suicide in the 15th century to rid the world of their monstrous kind. Apparently they did not entirely succeed, since 500 years later a diverse group of guests is invited to the castle by its resident count (Philip Davis), who plans to reveal the identity of a lycanthrope in their midst: the descendant of the one werewolf who got away. Filmed on location in Budapest, this film benefits from its ominous Gothic setting and an interesting score, but there is little else to recommend it; the mystery monster is onscreen for barely more than five minutes, making one wonder whether the film was originally intended to be a Howling sequel at all. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

It is the 15th c. in Hungary. And young prince Gaspar (Laszlo Galffy) was sent off to Italy when he was just two years old, and now he has come back to his father's castle as a grown man, with a troupe of actors in tow. Once arrived at the castle, he discovers his mother is in a kind of trance state, reportedly drinking the blood of virgins to keep her forever young (just like the infamous Bloody Lady Elizabeth Bathory). Gaspar's father has died in very mysterious circumstances - some say it was a bear that killed him (another symbolical, legendary animal in European lore) and others say he was done in by the Turks. Meanwhile, his uncle says the trance-like queen was really in love with him - and sometimes he says not. Yet they marry, and when she comes out of her mesmerized state for awhile she tells Gaspar that just like his friends, none of the castle's inhabitants are real, they are all actors and she is actually younger than he is - and then she falls back into her trance. As Gaspar seems to have nowhere to turn, a Turk comes into the picture to test him for his worthiness to rule, and says he (the Turk) is really Gaspar's father. The tests turn out negative, and Gaspar is told he cannot be king. There seems to be no choice but to leave the castle with his troupe of actors, and as the castle opens up onto a vast field, he and his friends - and an underhanded Turkish priest - make a dash for freedom, hoping to elude the weaponry of the Turkish guards behind them. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In 1950, when a young communist director arrives to take charge of a stud farm, his efforts to draw on the experience of the old hands there meet with little success. Indeed, so outraged are they at the changeover to communism that they harass him at every turn, especially after he treats a local barmaid as if she were a whore of some kind. After administering a beating to him, the old hands are nonetheless incensed when he calls on the police. The director doesn't get enough help, however, because the stable hands stab him before running off for the border. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The story of Istvan (Gyorgy Cserhalmi) which began in the first film of a projected trilogy by director Miklos Jancso, Magyar Rapszodia, is continued here in Allegro Barbaro. The trilogy was intended to tell the story of Hungary from 1900 to shortly after World War II. The first film ended shortly after the conclusion of World War I, as Istvan was beginning to rethink his allegiance to the landowning class of his father and coming to espouse the peasants' cause. As Allegro Barbaro opens, Istvan has joined forces with the peasants, and in a scene recapitulating the one which opens the first film, a celebration is underway. However, this time, it is composed exclusively of peasants. As the story proceeds, it is clear that Istvan is actively working with the peasants against his family and his class. By 1944, Endre Bajcscy-Zsilinszk, the man whose life this story is based on, was executed for plotting to kill Hitler. The two films, Magyar Rapszodia and Allegro Barbaro were the most expensive films made in Hungary up to that time and were poorly received by critics as well as the viewing public; perhaps the density of the symbolic imagery in them (a Jancso trademark) detracted from the storytelling. Because of the poor critical and public reception to the first two films, Jancso never made the third one. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Hungarian Rhapsody (Magyar Rapszodia) is the first chapter of director Miklos Jancso's two-part dramatized history of Hungary, from the turn of the century, to World War II. The story is told from the vantage point of Gyorgy Cserhalmi, the son of a wealthy landowner. During World War I, Cserhalmi is instrumental in quelling an army mutiny. Upon realizing that he has been responsible for the deaths of several peasant conscripts, Cserhalmi vows to be a "man of the people" when hostilities cease. He joins a communist cell, but finds he is woefully out of place. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Cserhalmi's political viewpoint is governed almost exclusively by his vacillating emotions. The film is enhanced with a "Russian Roulette" leitmotif, not unlike the fatalistic throughline of Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter. Director Jancso followed Hungarian Rhapsody with Allegro Barbaro; both films were originally released in tandem, then redistributed as separate features. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

An incompetent school administrator bamboozles a crew of inspectors into thinking that his students are doing okay in this Hungarian comedy. Among his pedagogical inventions is a game called "spider football," in which students, moving along on their backsides, hands and feet, play a highly modified game of soccer. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Hungarian director Istvan Szabó's 1976 feature Budapest Tales (AKA Budapesti mesék) unfolds in a purely allegorical, dreamlike realm, rich with indigenous symbolism. Following some great catastrophic onslaught - its exact nature unknown - a number of individuals emerge from hiding and discover a dilapidated old trolley car awash on a river bank. They instinctively begin loading all of their worldly goods onto the vehicle and pushing it along its tracks, destination unknown. In time, even the concept of a destination becomes secondary to the trek itself, and a number of key events befall the passenger/participants: a few lose all energy and fall by the wayside; the travelers run headfirst into a river that runs across a section of track, and must break the trolley down and move the pieces across, one at a time; occasional accidents and calamities arise, including the arrival of brigands. The life cycle, however, continues unabated: while one of the passengers dies, sacrificing his own life to ensure the continuation of the journey, a woman on board gives birth to twins. In time, the passengers (who have painted the trolley yellow and designated it with the number '1') enter the vicinity of a massive city, and discover that theirs is only one of a large number of indistinguishable trolleys approaching the metropolis. Many critics read Budapest Tales as a metaphor for the post-WWII history of Hungary; its overall reception was somewhat poor. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Most movies are composed of many small snippets of film which are spliced together, connected by "wipes," and "dissolves" and any number of other clever techniques which move the eye (and the story) from one piece of film to the next without being too obtrusive. Renowned Hungarian director Miklos Jancso has instead shot this film recounting the classical story of Electra's revenge in about nine long "takes." This is a technical feat of some magnitude; it is all the more remarkable because he makes it seem perfectly natural to the story, which is told in an allegorical and highly symbolic fashion, mixing primitive Greek settings with modern ones. In it, the woman Electra seeks vengeance for the murder of her father. Due to the highly abstract form of storytelling used, this film might best be appreciated by those who have studied or have knowledge of the original Greek myth on which it is based. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This Hungarian film explores the interplay between the romantic, liberal ideals of a sickly young nobleman and the brutal world in which he finds himself. Having studied abroad, and absorbed ideas about human rights and dignity, the young man is unprepared for the brutality of his father's regime in what is virtually a feudal estate. He finds a robber, imprisoned in the castle basement, who claims to be stealing for the poor. When the hapless lad frees this predator, he learns even more, with tragic results. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This is one of the more inscrutable works by famed Hungarian director Miklos Jancso, better known for his film epic on the Russian Revolution, The Red and the White. His films still upset authorities in Eastern Europe, and he is considered to be both a political maverick and an extraordinary film stylist. This film, Egi Barany, or Agnus Dei, deals with the period in Hungary's history immediately following the overthrow of the Bela Kun Commune in 1919. Hungary, like the other units of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, suffered from chaos and civil war following the breakup of the empire at the end of World War I. For a short time, the Commune, a communist faction, governed Hungary. It had considerable military support from the new Bolshevik regime in Russia. The movie shows communards attempting to hold on to power in a rural area. They have (but do not welcome) the support of a wild, epileptic priest. The story is told using dialogue from Hungarian folklore and the Bible. Peasants are swept up in waves of violence as supporters of Admiral Horthy and the Reds struggle for control. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A group of anarchistic Croatians cross borders to carry out their assassination plots in order to create political chaos. There are no heroes, only a collection of despicable humans. A lesbian couple rapes and terrorizes a roomful of women who are ordered to disrobe and perform unwanted sex acts at gunpoint. The target of the murderers is Serbian King Alexander II of Yugoslavia, but the thinly disguised plot takes a back seat to the nudity and exploitation in this film. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In The Father (Apa), Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Szabo invests a great deal of poetry and warmth in a story that, in lesser hands, might have become a wallow in bathos. After his father is killed in World War II, a young Hungarian boy named Tako concocts a fantasy image of the parent he never really knew. Convincing himself of his father's unstinting bravery, the boy grows into a man (Andras Balint) who hopes to emulate his dad's heroism. During the 1956 uprising, our hero falls in love with Jewish refugee Anni (Kati Solyom). Apprised of the horrors experienced by Anni's people during the Holocaust, Tako decides to find out whether or not his father was truly the noble warrior he's imagined him to be. It turns out that the father was neither wholly good nor wholly evil, just an average Hungarian hoping to make the best of a difficult world. At long last, Tako is able to divest himself of his father's shadow and become a man on his own terms. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi