Janos Ban Movies

At some indeterminate point in a dystopian near-future, Bogdanski Dolina - a grubby, unkempt Central European hamlet - buckles beneath the weight of misery. Armed barbarians guard the wire fences that ensconce the town, while the residents must contend with abusive draconian laws. The town governance is abetted, in its attempts to maintain order, by a TB camp - home to not only tuberculosis victims but also a host of societal rejects. But lives are about to grow a thousand times more unbearable with the arrival of a bizarre, totalitarian band of clerical oppressors, known as 'The Vicarage,' comprised almost entirely of onetime guards from the village, who sport cassocks and phony beards attached with cords. Thus begins Hungarian director Zoltan Kamondi's quaternary feature, the sociopolitical allegory Dolina. Kamondi sets up a half dozen crisscrossing subplots that unfurl in and around the village. In one, resident Colentina Dunka (Piroska Molnar), the lesbian proprietress of a combination brothel, hair-salon and bath house, schemes to drive one of her employees-cum-romantic pursuits away from her husband; she also plans and plots to orchestrate the return of her son, Petrus (Milan Vajda) from a lengthy exile. At about the same time, a new arrival turns up in town, Gabriel Ventuza (Adriano Giannini) and attempts to exhume the corpse his father, but encounters only frustration and hardship. Meanwhile, a dispute erupts between two Vicarage members, a small band of locals plots to spring an unjustly interred member of the TB facility from that hellhole, and reunite him with his Armenian relatives, and least two members of the community struggle with irreciprocal affections. And uniting everything is fear of the massive, oppressive impact that the new governing body will make on the tiny hamlet. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Hungarian director Tamas Toth's action film Rinaldo tells the story of a group of people defending an apartment building from at attack by a street gang. Rezso (Janos Ban) and Mazsola (Peter Scherer) are former co-workers who, after losing their jobs when the factory closes, end up opposing each other when Mazsola leads a band of people to stand up against the street gang led by Rezso. The title character is a circus performer and knife-throwing specialist who makes an important contribution to the battle. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Marta is a woman trapped between two generations. A middle-aged divorcee with an identity crisis, she runs a pottery business out of the small farmhouse where she lives with her wild teenage daughter Alica and her eccentric old mother. Actually while trying to cope with Alica's promiscuity and her mother's tendency to wear old theatrical costumes, poor Marta has little time for herself or her business. Still, despite their differences and emotional outbursts, the three woman manage to get along until a family tragedy forces them to reassess their relationships with each other and seek more common ground. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This lightweight Hungarian comedy chronicles the return of an expatriate who has been away for over 38 years. When the Russians invaded Hungary in 1956, 14-year old Tamas Gordon fled the country. But for a case of mumps, he took almost nothing with him. Now he returns with Shirley, his African-American wife. He drives around the streets of his old town in a hired Caddy. Though successful, he is still homesick for his family with whom he has had no contact for almost 40 years. The mumps left him sterile and he has no children. He has returned to pay his younger brother Laci $300,000 to donate his highly viable sperm (Laci's wife already has a son and is pregnant with another.) so Shirley can become pregnant. Laci is happy to oblige, but prefers to impregnate her in the usual manner. Shirley, is also happy to oblige. Trouble ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This lightly romantic drama conceals a slight political edge as it presents the story of a young Yugoslavian woman stuck in Hungary on New Year's Eve. The tale begins on New Year's Day, 1993 where Vesna has just spent the night in a Budapest apartment with Arpad. Later as she heads back via train to Vienna she is arrested at the Austrian border. It seems her Yugoslav passport is no longer valid. The story jumps back to the night before as she arrived in Budapest and met a loud Russian. After meeting him she ended up in bed with Arpad, the bar pianist. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a taciturn law-enforcement officer from Russia. James Belushi co-stars as a wise-lipped Chicago cop. Though they go together like caviar and White Castles, they are forced to team up to collar the Soviet Union's most notorious drug lord. Thus does director Walter Hill recycle his 48 Hours formula for another unlikely star team. Unfortunately, Red Heat isn't half as enjoyable as the earlier film, owing to a lack of rapport between the two leading men and an overall lack of inspiration infecting the whole project. The one notable aspect of Red Heat is that it was the first commercial American film to stage scenes in Moscow's Red Square. Watch for Laurence Fishburne (still billed as "Larry") in a secondary role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Jiri Menzel of Closely Watched Trains fame directed the sweet little Czechoslovakian comedy/drama My Sweet Little Village. The life's blood of the titular community is a collective farm. Marian Labuda is the farm's truck driver, and also the partner-protector of Janos Ban, who is the village idiot. Like everyone else in the village, Labuda has watched out for Ban and covered up his mistakes, but in recent weeks the situation has become intolerable and Labuda demands a new partner. As Ban prepares to be relocated to Prague, we cut away to various subplots, all of which lead to the same conclusion: the hapless Ban has always been the "glue" that has held the community together. A contrite Labuda heads for Prague to invite Ban to come back home. Originally titled Vesnicko Ma Stediskova, My Sweet Little Village was a 1986 Academy Award "best foreign-language picture" nominee. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi