Andras Balint Movies

Csaba Fazekas' comedy Boldog Szuletesnapot! (Happy Birthday!) is about a man turning 30. On the day of his birthday, music teacher Andras Osvath (Gergely Kocsis) promises himself that he will accomplish four different goals. He will have sex with two women, drive a great car, have a wife and child for a day, and get a house. A blonde woman named Kelemen (Eszter Onodi) plays a substantial part in completing three of these four tasks, and she drags Andras along as she faces down her lover Peter (Gábor Máté) in front of his wife (Judit Hernadi). ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Andras Suranyi directs this spare though poignant film recounting the last day of an old man's life. The film opens with an elderly couple making preparations for their morning routine. The wife makes her husband some tea, they walk to the park, and they visit a café before the husband has a sudden, fatal heart attack. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

This European drama chronicles the life of a 13-year old Jewish girl in the 1950's during Stalin's reign. It is told from her point of view. The story begins in 1952. Kati is in class when she is abruptly removed and informed of her mother's death. Because her father works in a distant city, Kati must live briefly with her uncaring uncle. She eventually returns to her former apartment which she must share with another family. She must return because there is a housing shortage. Any empty flats are seized and occupied. To ease her subsequent loneliness, Kati begins holding imaginary conversations with her mother. Though the images are surprisingly real to Kati, they do not take the place of real friends and affections. Trouble ensues after she holds a birthday party at her house. There is liquor. After the party, Kati expresses erotic thoughts. Her teacher discovers the diary. Kati does find love with a bookseller who is involved with another woman. She invites him to share her apartment. The night she loses her virginity is disappointing. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

While vacationing in Paris, Park Avenue socialite Helen Hollander (Connie Sellecca) cannot shake the feeling that she is being watched. Helen's instincts aren't failing her: Ever since disembarking from her plane, sinister-looking characters have been monitoring her every move. Flippant private eye Hank McCay (Ed Marinaro) tries to help Helen shake her pursuers, but he's not so good a detective that he notices the highly volatile contents of our heroine's suitcase. A US-Hungarian coproduction, the lighthearted TV-movie thriller Passport to Murder made its first appearance over NBC on March 7, 1993. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This four-part, four-hour British miniseries was a sequel to Malcolm Bradbury's 1990 TV effort The Gravy Train. Christoph Waltz returned to the role of Dorfman, a terminally idealistic member of the European Economic Council. This time around, the teeny-tiny Balkan state of Slaka hoped to join the Council in hopes of supping from the same public-fund trough as the rest of the European nations. It was up to Dorfman to cast the deciding "yea" or "nay" vote. The Gravy Train Goes West was seen over Britain's Channel Four from October 28 to November 18, 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This historical drama chronicles the struggle of Swedish businessman Raoul Wallenberg (Stella Skarsgard), as he fought valiantly to save the lives of the Jewish residents of Nazi-occupied Budapest. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

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, 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

Vera (Mari Kiss) is at odds with herself over an affair with a married man in this standard romantic fare from Hungarian director Andras Kovacs. Vera is young and divorced and living with her mother who is constantly trying to match her up with one man or another, losers all of them. Although Vera continues to see her married lover Tamas (Gyorgi Cserhalmi) she vacillates about his good intentions -- will he leave his wife for her? Will he not? The guessing game goes on and her bad experiences with one man after another make her indecision worse. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Cecilia Esztergalyos stars as the unlikely-named "Sz," a woman bent on absorbing the persona of Marilyn Monroe through the characters Monroe played in the movies. While she is being interviewed for a job, Sz remembers critical events from her own life that reflect some of the pathos of the Hollywood star's existence: failed relationships, exploitation, unhappy affairs. These bits form the substance of the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, 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

This film is an adaptation of whatever part of Tibor Dery's epic novel would fit into a 141 minute period. The novel concerns Hungarian society in the 1930s. In the story, a young man of the upper class is in love with a communist laborer, but despite his best intentions, is unable to fully break through the barriers of class. The story resumes after World War II, and much is then explained about what happened earlier. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Red Psalm, or Még kér a nép (literally: "The People Still Ask") is one of the great Hungarian film director Miklos Jancso's best-known films. It recounts quite poetically the story of a peasant uprising on an estate in Hungary in the 1890s. It examines the nature of revolt, and the issues of morality and violence. This film uses symbolic imagery and language involving the color red to great effect and was filmed in a virtuoso manner, using only 28 shots. Reviewers reported that Jancso's storytelling technique most closely resembled that used in ballet. The pacifistic peasants, who seek some basic rights, are in a standoff with local authorities and later, the army. Everyone takes a break in the confrontation in order to celebrate a festival. Afterwards, the peasants resume their strike and meet with a tragic end. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi