Laszlo Galffi Movies

His career on the wane and his marriage to a narcissistic actress in shambles, an uninspired screenwriter finds his passions awoken in ways that he never expected after making the acquaintance of a bisexual teenage street hustler. Tibor is in his mid-fifties, and lately his career prospects have been looking especially bleak. Though his wife was once a famous actress, these she's lucky to find a substantial role in provincial theater. One day, while his wife is out of town, Tibor meets an effeminate street thug named Zsolt. While in the past Tibor has always considered himself strictly heterosexual, there's something about Zsolt that he cannot resist and he eventually invites the boy back to his apartment. His creative spirit reawakened by the experimental affair, the writer eventually realizes just how risky the relationship is and subsequently attempts to sever his ties with the smoldering gigolo. But ending the affair isn't going to be so easy, because Tibor is just another john to Zsolt, and the scheming street ruffian certainly isn't above a little blackmail when it comes to keeping their relationship low-key. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A dance piece by composer Bela Bartok is brought to the screen in this short ballet feature. A beautiful young woman (Yvette Bozsik) runs afoul of a masher (Jan Nowicki) and, while trying to escape his lewd attentions, is kidnapped by evildoers. The abductors force the woman to work as a streetwalker, but when things seem darkest, she is befriended by a mysterious Asian gentleman (Yu Jung Zhang), who helps her escape to freedom. Yvette Bozsik, who dances the leading role, also served as choreographer for this film, which was produced for Hungarian television. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Fans of European football (which Americans call soccer) may get an extra kick from this Hungarian time-travel comedy. Rezso (Karoly Eperjes), a garbage man in Budapest, has to clear out the apartment of an old man who has recently died. In the process, he discovers a remarkable collection of football memorabilia, most related to a crucial 1953 Hungary vs. England championship match that was played the day Rezso was born. Discovering a team jersey from the game, Rezso tries it on for size and finds himself transported back to the day of the match, where he's bemused by Hungary's past come to life and eager to witness this moment in sports history with full knowledge of its outcome. 6:3 was shown as part of the 1999 Hungarian Film Week Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Anna (Anna Ráczkevei) has a loving husband and three healthy, cheerful children. It has taken a lot of luck and a lot of work to get to this point, but she is satisfied. Who would have imagined that, after becoming pregnant and marrying at sixteen, things would have turned out so well. However, Anna is far from pleased to discover that she has become pregnant for a fourth time. Enough is enough. As Anna tries to cope with her feelings about this new development and to discern what she can do about it, she is overwhelmed with memories of the past and a strange fantasy about an ever-present saxaphone player. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The second film in the trilogy made by director Istvan Szabo and actor Klaus Maria Brandauer -- hammocked between Mephisto and Hanussen -- Colonel Redl continues Mephisto's fascination with a man overwhelmed by history. In that film, Brandauer played an actor who tried to ignore the rise of the Third Reich, and here he's an ambitious military officer in pre-World War I Austria whose career path is set early on. In military school, he's forced to inform on a student who's the source of a practical joke; though he beats himself up for being a Judas, he soon realizes that to rise in the ranks he must overcome his peasant background and hide his homosexuality by ingratiating himself with his superiors. In time, he becomes Chief of Military Intelligence for the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Though he professes to hate politics and politicians, Redl also can't avoid them. When the leader for whom Redl is supposedly spying among the officer corps, draws up a list of who can't be exposed for traitorous activities (including Austrian nobles, Hungarians, Czechs, Serbs, Croatians, and even the usual scapegoats, Jews -- the aftershocks of the Dreyfuss affair are still rumbling), he tells Redl that he must find a double of himself, a Ukrainian. Now certain that he will be exposed, Redl surrenders to fate, quoting to his wife from Montaigne: "It's no sin to be involved. It's a sin to remain involved." Brandauer is a wonder as the self-loathing Redl, and Szabo's camera picks up every nuance on his expressive face. The film eschews music except for several party scenes, and the absence of a score is most effective in the final shots of Redl's fellow officers awaiting his fate. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

When a young boy comes in to see a doctor abourt a red mark on his face, the doctor's wife welcomes him into the consulting room instead. As they talk, she offers him something to eat and then notes that his manner of eating is just like that of her previous husband, who died in prison many years earlier. It turns out that the young man had been his cell mate for a year, and he tells her the story of how her husband died. She then remembers (in flashbacks) how she had helped her first husband rid himself of his sexual repression, and how she had promised him she would marry her current husband if she were widowed. It seems her doctor-husband was a man who could remain untouched through any political climate, and was much admired by her first husband. Now that her memories have been awakened by the young man's account, she ignores the repeated phone calls of her current husband and decides to rid this young man of his own sexual repressions (he had been falsely accused of rape) - which seems to be a definite avocation in her life. She also starts to contemplate her own future in a different light. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, 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