A Tale of the 1990s: A Case Study of Nimród Antal’s The Whiskey Bandit as an Allegory of Post-Socialist Nostalgia

Abstract

The story of Attila Ambrus, also known as the Whiskey Bandit or the Whiskey Robber, is one of the most memorable and widely remembered phenomena from 1990s Hungary. Between 1993 and 1999 Ambrus committed thirty robberies in post offices, banks, travel agencies and other financial institutions. What makes his persona stand out is that despite being a criminal, he not only became a celebrity with widespread media presence, but also a divisive hero: he enjoyed massive popularity as he outmaneuvered police repeatedly. This article reads The Whiskey Bandit (dir. Nimród Antal, 2017), a cinematic adaptation of his criminal career, as an allegory of a specific post-socialist nostalgia in Hungary, a longing for the brief period after the regime change when social, cultural, economic and political transformations re-structured the country’s landscape in an abrupt and even confusing manner, yet offered a moment of hope for endless possibilities and joining the progress of Western modernity. The analysis contextualizes the film’s non-­linear temporal and cacophonic spatial structures as an allegory of 1990s Hungarian experience; furthermore, examines nostalgic overtones in the film as a contemporary reflexive perspective on the euphoric moment of the regime change and following disillusionment of post-regime-change Hungary.