Mari Töröcsik Movies

Sandor Kardos' Telitalálat (Winning Ticket) is set in Budapest, Hungary, during the 1956 rebellion. Bela (Sandor Gaspar) is a factory worker who lives a drudge-like existence with his family as well as Roszika (Mariann Szalay), an attractive young woman who has been forced to live with them by the local housing officials. The day that the riots begin in the streets, Bela wins the lottery. As he carries his winnings home he becomes part of the protests. His family leaves him, and he eventually fails to hold onto either the money or Roszika, whose motives for being interested in him are less than pure. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

The fortunes of a family of Hungarian Jews are followed over the course of nearly 150 years in this epic historical drama, with leading man Ralph Fiennes playing three different roles. The story begins in the late 18th century, as Aaron and Josefa Sonnenschein (the name means "Sunshine" in German) die in an explosion while making an herb tonic for sale in their village. Their son Emmanuel (David de Keyser), the only survivor of the tragedy, travels to Budapest, carrying the recipe for the medicine with him. He's able to parlay the formula into a successful business, and Emmanuel and his wife Rose (Miriam Margolyes) raise two sons, Ignatz (Ralph Fiennes), who becomes a successful lawyer, and hot-tempered Gustave (James Frain). The Sonnenscheins also make room in their home for Valerie (Jennifer Ehle), but Emmanuel and Rose become furious when Valerie becomes romantically involved with Ignatz. Eventually, Valerie and Ignatz raise two children, Istvan (Mark Strong) and Adam (Ralph Fiennes), and the family changes its name to Sors in hopes of avoiding the anti-Semitism sweeping Europe. In time, Adam goes so far as to convert to Catholicism, and he marries another Catholic, Hannah (Molly Parker). He soon begins an affair with his brother's wife, Greta (Rachel Weisz), who is unable to persuade Adam to leave as the Nazis rise to power. Adam and Hannah have only one son, Ivan, who is fated to watch his father die in a concentration camp; as Ivan grows to adulthood (now played by Ralph Fiennes), he swears revenge on the forces of fascism and embraces Communism. Ivan throws in his lot with Communist leader Andor Knorr (William Hurt), but a liaison with the wife of a party official (Deborah Kara Unger) leads Ivan to tragic consequences and a jail term. In time, Valarie and Gustave are reunited at the family's estate as the only two members of the Sonnenschein clan who survive to witness the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Hungarian director Istvan Szabo co-wrote Sunshine's original screenplay in collaboration with American playwright Israel Horovitz. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Ostensibly this film is the tale of Benjamin Fleischmann, a talented protégé of Soviet composer Shostakovich whose attempts to compose a 40-minute opera during the late '30s are thwarted by the political atmosphere of his time. This almost docudrama also paints a vivid portrait of the master composer who rescued the minor work after the idealistic Fleischmann, outraged that the Soviets were doing nothing to help save Polish Jews from the torments of German invaders, abandons it to join the fight against the Nazis in Poland. During the ensuing Siege of Leningrad, Fleischmann disappeared. Later Shostakovich found his manuscript and prepared it for performance. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This Hungarian comedy depicts the exploits of 8 members of a travelling troupe of actors and musicians as they move about the country performing a series of one night stands. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Ede (Dezso Garas) is in his sixties, and he is full of uncertainty about how he and his wife Kati (Mari Torocsik) will fare in the new post-communist regime in Hungary. At least before, he had some idea what he needed to do to get by, and even if he never made much money with his myriad schemes, they got by. Kati has got a real bug in her ear about their livelihood, and is hounding him to get into the spirit of the new system. This is troubling enough for the old gent, but when he runs into an old mistress (Kati Lazar) and discovers that he has a grown son he has never met or knew about, his life becomes even more confusing. His slimy ex big-shot brother-in-law (Istvan Avar) is a major player in the new entrepeneurial risk-taking, and he beseiges poor Ede with advice as well. In this topical comedy, all these worrisome things, and more, come to a head at a big family celebrtion. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

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

For a while after the discovery and publishing of Anne Frank's moving diary, it appeared that another Anne had also written a diary detailing her experiences in hiding from the Nazis. Instead, Anna Herman's diary, which briefly attained some reknown, was proved to have been written by her guilt-ridden mother Esther (Eszter Nagy Kalozy) in order to atone for her having abandoned her family in order to escape to freedom with her second husband. This film follows Esther from her realization that her daughter is dead, through her punishing guilt, to the writing of the diary. Alas, this only staves off, but does not prevent, her final act of penance. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Jessica Lange plays an attorney whose affable Hungarian-immigrant father Armin Mueller-Stahl is arrested. He is threatened with deportation for lying about his activities during World War II; part of the charge is that Mueller-Stahl was a Nazi collaborationist, guilty of wartime atrocities. Absolutely convinced that her father is being railroaded by a revenge-seeking Hungarian communist government, Lange handles Mueller-Stahl's defense, expertly blowing huge holes in prosecuting attorney Frederic Forrest's case. But in doing her own research, Lange discovers that her father has spent a lifetime paying off a blackmailer. Why? In contrast to the fervency of his earlier Z, Costa-Gavras refuses to make things easy by proselytizing in The Music Box (nor does screenwriter Joe Esterhas indulge in his usual right-between-the-eyes fervency). Everything in the film is offered on the same calm, collected level, making the ultimate horror of the story all the more effective. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Divided into two different halves separated by mood and subject matter, this is an uneven drama about the experience of one Hungarian Jew before and during the fascist takeover of Budapest. The hero Pali (Zoltan Bezeredi) arrives back in Budapest from the U.S. and meanders among the intellectual and social elite before he leaves for a brief stay in England. There he has an even briefer affair with a happy-go-lucky aspiring actress (Anna Kubik), and after a few other encounters with movie mavens, he heads back to Budapest -- quite inexplicably. The rest of the film deteriorates into a dark realm of hatred and violence. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this charming story about the older set and their interests and shortcomings, three women living in a senior citizens' apartment complex are grieving because Peter (Tamas Major) has died. Two of the women are Peter's ex-wives (Dana Medricka and Vlasta Fabianova), and one was his mistress (Klari Tolnay). When Peter's friend Gyorgy (Vlastimil Brodsky) arrives from Canada and starts to take an interest in one of the women, everyone can see that attraction knows no age limits. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this routine children's film, Arnika (Zsuzsa Nyertes), a young princess, wants to marry Johnny (Tamas Puskas), a commoner, but a wicked witch has cast a spell on the two of them. As a result, Arnika becomes a duck while Johnny stays human, or on occasion, Johnny becomes a drake while Arnika stays human. Clearly the duck-drake-human bonding needs to be straightened out, and so the cursed couple set off on a journey to find a wizard who can put an end to their mismatched, animal-human transformations. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The Hungarian Forbidden Relations is a shockingly straightforward treatise on the subject of incest. A woman's (Lili Monori) love for her brother (Miklos B. Szekely) goes far beyond filial devotion. His feelings for her are likewise intense. The problem goes beyond conventional morality: incest is illegal in communist Hungary, and as a result both brother and sister are thrown into prison. American audiences weren't always certain whether Forbidden Relations was simply a paean to individual freedom or an advocacy of impure love. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi