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8 novembre > SALA 5 ore 19.15

Hungary – 1966 – b/n – 86’

CREDITS

Direction: István Szabó

Screenplay: István Szabó

Cinematography: Sándor Sára

Editing: János Rózsa

Set design: Károly Molnár 

Music: Gustav Mahler, János Gonda

Costumes: Erzsébet Mialkovszky

Cast: Miklós Gábor, András Bálint, Dániel Erdély, Klári Tolnay, Katalin Sólyom, Zsuzsa Ráthonyi

Producer: Tibor Hranitzky 

Production: Mafilm, Studio 3

SYNOPSIS

Budapest, 1949: at the height of the Stalinist era, little Takó has to deal with the figure of his father, a doctor who died at the end of the war, whom the boy has transformed in his mind and in his false memories into a mythical figure. Seven years later, on the eve of the Hungarian Revolution, Takó is a young university student still struggling with the memory of his father, trying to discover the reality of the man hidden behind his fantasies.

CRITICAL NOTE

“By recreating (for a dreamlike evocation) a triumphal event conforming to Stalinist models, then filming (for a movie) scenes of deportation during the German occupation, István Szabó skilfully denounces the official lies of the regime and that mystical, alienating idea of fatherhood propagated by the cult of Personality. These two “enactments” clearly refer to the “enactments” (setups) and manipulations of Stalinist history: they alone are not enough to make the whole narrative an allegory. After all, Father’s realist narration makes sense by heading towards that, by integrating these memories of the past and bringing them into the present. Is it necessary to recall that in allegory the first level is abolished as the second emerges?”

(Barthélemy Amengual, Positif No. 146, January 1973)

AWARDS

1967 Festival di Mosca: Grand Prix

1967 Locarno Film Festival:  Special Jury Prize

1967 Academy Award: Hungarian nominee for Best Foreign Language Film