Lajos Balazsovits Movies

This is the third of the very autobiographical and very anti-communist "diary" movies made by noted Hungarian woman director Marta Meszaros. Since it takes up where the second film left off, it is helpful to have seen the previous films in order to make sense of the story. Set in Budapest in 1956, it chronicles the events leading up to and following a brief anti-Soviet insurrection, and it particularly follows the career of her aunt's lover, Janos (Jan Nowicki) who was active in the uprising. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Zoltai (Andras Balint) is a Hungarian professor who returns home after a visit to the United States. Following a television interview, he commits suicide and leaves a note for his longtime friend Dr. Bardocz (Gyorgy Cserhalmi).The doctor and Zoltai's colleague Komindi (Jozsef Madaras) join the police in investigating what drove the man to suicide in this surrealistic drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This musical is actually a filmed live performance of the story of King Stephan I of Hungary (ca. 977-1038) who brought Roman Catholicism into the country, united previously separate Magyar states, suppressed pagan beliefs by force, reformed the Church, and supported monasteries and abbeys. He was canonized in 1083 and is the patron saint of Hungary. "Istvan, A Kiraly" was an already popular rock opera and its albums selling well when director Gabor Koltay decided to film a full performance in 1984. Cinematic techniques such as slow motion and freeze-framing add to the drama, just as Dolby Stereo brings out the vocal and instrumental tonalities of the very professional singers and musicians. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

A rebel leader imprisoned for trying to overthrow Austrian Emperor Franz Josef escapes from jail three years after an aborted political uprising in 1848. He quickly recruits six others sympathetic to his cause to take part in a kidnap attempt on the ruler. Although small in numbers, the group inflicts severe damage to the imperial guards before the last man enters the royal coach. In a satirical bit of ironic symbolism, the only one in the carriage is a dummy. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

In this wartime movie, five teen-aged recruits seek to follow their orders to resist a Russian troop movement. In the chaos of the late World War II era, they never battle the Russians but are set upon by their own troops and their German allies. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The son of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, Crown Prince Rudolf, is believed to have shot his female lover and himself in a tragic suicide pact in 1882 in Mayerling. Due to Imperial cover-ups, the full story may never be known. This story has been filmed several times, in French in 1935 and in English in 1968. Hungarian director Miklos Jancso recreates those events for his own purposes, continuing his favored theme of the rejection of paternal authority. In the film, which has very little dialog, Rudolf is a good-natured pan-sexual golden boy, who cavorts on his rural estate with a host of beautiful, aristocratic lovers and friends of both sexes. He refuses to leave his country idyll even though he has been ordered to by the Emperor, his father. Despite the fact that for a large part of the film, attractive young people go about unclothed and engaging in erotic encounters, the mood is one of melancholy rather than prurience. The Prince is a political liberal who wishes to arrange things so that the Emperor will arrest him, creating a public scandal which will provide a rallying point for the opposition. Instead, when the expected troops come, Rudolf's sensuous friends loyally ward off the Imperial officers, humiliating them in the process. The result is that the guests, the Prince and a hermaphrodite friend are killed by newly arrived Imperial reinforcements, and the now-familiar official story of murder and suicide is concocted for public consumption. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

An Italian car crash sends its victims adrift in time back to 11th-century Tibet where they re-enact the dramatic story of the poet-sage Milarepa. One of the car's occupants, a young man (Lajos Balasovitz), experiences first hand the power and use of the awesome black magic commonly recounted in the legends of that period, and this causes him considerable distress. He then seeks out someone who can teach him the techniques that lead to inner peace. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide