Hungarian Films Research Articles

Hungarian Animation, Folklore, and The Soviet Government

Abstract This study will use rhetorical criticism to analyze eleven Hungarian animation films and four TV shows from the Soviet-era to discover how Hungarian animation in this period utilized folktales to criticize the government. The Thompson Motif Index will be used as a point of comparison. Results from the study show that multiple animation films utilized folktale elements to criticize the government, leaving it open for further study to explore other ideologies that may be reflected in Hungarian animation in the Soviet-era.

A Certain Kind of Happiness: Women and Disability in Recent Hungarian Cinema

The article examines cinematic representations of disabled women in recent Hungarian films and argues that women’s lived experiences and corporal realities are often overwritten by deeply gendered and heteronormative expectations. As a case in point, the close analysis focuses on a recent, award-winning Hungarian film by Ildikó Enyedi, On Body and Soul (2017) showing that the film ultimately reinforces traditional configurations of love and romance forgoing the narrative potentials that woman’s disabled subject initially opens up in the film. Similar to several recent Hungarian films, On Body and Soul, leaves the disabled female protagonist to her own devices (cinematic and otherwise) to cope with social pressures of patriarchal gender norms as well as with ‘compulsory able-mindedness’. More generally, the goal of the essay is to problematize the kinds of happiness accessible to disabled women and to critique some of the ways in which cinema constructs concepts of happiness for the disabled.

New hero in the 1960s Hungarian fiction and film

The article explores the formation of a new hero in Hungarian cinema of the 1960s against the background of transformations that took place in Hungarian society during the so-called Kádár Consolidation period, and in the context of changes that affected the country’s literature and film. The emergence of a new hero is closely connected with literature due to the traditional literary-centricity of Hungarian cinema. A brief description of the situation in literature and film in 1960s of this period is followed by references to three films-symbols of the era: Cantata by Miklos Jáncsó, based on József Lengyel’s short story, Age of Illusions by István Szabó and Good Evening, Summer, Good Evening, Love by Sándor Szőnyi and László Márton based on a short novel by Endre Fejes. The works of Jancsó and Szőnyi are screen adaptations of literary works (the book behind Szőnyi’s film is based on real events), while Sabo’s picture uses an original script, but using documentary materials. Versatile visual solutions, and an appeal to the current narrative techniques in current film speak in favor of the departure of 1960s’ Hungarian films from texts’ adaptations and signal the desire to talk about modernity using new modalities and practices of European cinema, as well as principles of composition inherent in the Hungarian visual arts (especially photography).

The boundaries of creativity – attempts at reinventing the screenplay and the figure of the screenwriter in the Hungarian cinema after 19561

Why Are Hungarian Films Bad? This oft-quoted question was the title of a film, released in 1964, thematizing the unsolved and confused conditions in Hungarian cinema. This study analyzes the discourse which tried to interpret this creative crisis, as well as attempts to rethink and reorganize the practices of screenwriting after 1956. I will then enumerate the main ideological, censorial and personal issues of the centralized development of screenwriting inherited from the Stalinist era. I consider Why Are Hungarian Films Bad? a contribution to the discourse. After analyzing the debate on the reformation of screenwriting, I will show how theories emerging in the late 1950s and early 1960s created a new frame for the screenwriting practice of the subsequent decades.

Conflict Types in Hungarian Film History

Abstract The article introduces the collective research project entitled The Social History of Hungarian Cinema, 1931–2015, executed by the staff of Film Studies Department Eötvös Loránd University. This data-driven research aims to examine how and why Hungarian films have changed over time. Using the case study of conflict types in the plots of Hungarian films this study discusses the methodological problems of longitudinal explanations of change in Hungarian film history (periodization and dividing film between genre-based film and auteur films/art cinema). Based on the analysis of statistics and trends, the study presents the most important types of conflict in Hungarian film history. With respect to the political turning points and the periodization of Hungarian film history, the article states that each of the three broad periods (1931–1944, 1945–1989, 1990–2015) is characterized by its own distinctive set of prominent conflict types. The pre-1945 era is characterized by a massive number of love conflicts, the socialist period by the highest rate of political conflicts (and the lowest rates of love and crime conflicts), and the post-socialist period by a high rate of crime and generational conflicts. Furthermore, by analysing the connections between conflict types and genres, the study reveals recurring patterns and trends of shorter periods: it shows how the range of conflicts narrowed considerably over the 1970s and discusses the extent to which this is related to the dominance of auteur films in the era.

The Representation of Women and Female Mobility in Hungarian Films between 1931 and 1944

Abstract Györgyi Vajdovich’s article aims to describe the representation of female roles in Hungarian feature films of the period 1931 to 1944. The study is based on the analysis of the database that was created within the framework of the research project The Social History of Hungarian Cinema. Concentrating on the representation of female protagonists, this article first analyses the presence and prevalence of female figures in all Hungarian sound films (up until 2015). Then it narrows the scope of analysis to films produced between 1931 and 1944, and describes the typical professions and social and financial positions of female protagonists, as compared to those of male protagonists. The second half of the text examines the representation of female upward mobility in comedies – showing that according to the popular myths of the era, female upward mobility is principally realized through good marriage, with the narratives of the films rarely presenting the professional success of female protagonists and their possibilities of emancipation. Analysing the narrative patterns and gender roles in the films of the time, the text concludes that the narratives of female ascension, which mostly took form in comedies, reflected the desire of middle-class people to transgress the social and financial boundaries in society. As such, the films served to maintain and strengthen the patriarchal order of the era.

Up the Slope. Women’s Mobility Stories in Post-Transition Hungarian Cinema

Abstract Using data and statistics obtained in the research project The Social History of Hungarian Cinema (1931–2015), this study investigates the upward and downward mobility movements of women in the Hungarian films made after the regime change. The political transition following the collapse of communism radically altered the economic and social structure of Hungarian society. The social experiences of losses and failures, as well as the closing social structure are reflected directly and explicitly in many Hungarian films made between 1990 and 2015. With the help of Bernard Weiner’s social attribution theory for describing failure and success, the article analyses the narratives of these films in terms of the extent to which and the proportion that they are attributed to inner, individual dispositions or external circumstances. Based on this approach, the author states that female heroines in these movies appear to move “up the slope,” as they are pulled down not only by the gravitational force of economic and social crises, but also by the lack of emancipation and gender equality.

Distressed Glamour. Genres and Political-Social Context in Hungarian Cinema of the 1930s and 1940s

Abstract The article focuses on Hungarian films produced between 1939–1944 by examining how they tend to refrain from representing conflicts, and scrutinizing the political as well as social issues. However, directors started to revise this avoidance of conflicts by employing a so-called noir sensibility from the beginning of the Second World War in certain films, especially in “doomed love movies” such as Deadly Spring (Halálos tavasz, 1939), Mountain Girl (A hegyek lánya, 1942), and A Woman Looks Back (Egy assszony visszanéz, 1942), or melodramas, such as At the Crossroads (Keresztúton, 1942), Lent Life (Kölcsönadott élet, 1943), and Black Dawn (Fekete hajnal, 1943). The essay also offers a case study of the banned Hungarian movie Half a Boy (Egy fiúnak a fele, shot in 1943, but only shown in February 1946) by D. Ákos Hamza, which represented and protested against the stigmatization of Jewish people. Half a Boy is an often-cited emblematic film of its era. It is also an enigmatic one: it is a work full of social and political-historical reflections. Its humanistic point of view makes it outstanding in its era, nevertheless it is also rather ambivalent in terms of its orientation of values.

Borders and Identity in A halálba táncoltatott leány ['The Maiden Danced to Death'] and A nagy füzet ['The Notebook'

This article explores borders, border crossings and the geography of separation in two recent Hungarian films. In The Maiden Danced to Death (2011) and The Notebook (2013), two films produced within a few years of one another and just before the recent re-erection of a border between Hungary and its neighbors, escape provides the vehicle for the brothers’ separation. Of particular interest is the frequent portrayal of brothers separated during communism, often with one brother staying and one leaving. In these films, regimes and ideology tear brothers apart; whether viewed on screen or only alluded to, the crossing of a border becomes a physical symbol of this separation and loss. The fraternal pairs’ personal lives interact with history, especially the repressive state as manifested in Hungary’s border. Geocriticism, border and trauma studies perspectives will help understand the anguish of this separation. In these films, political realities fray the bonds between brothers and lead to their separation through the border, or to its trace, as identities are subjected to traumatic reconfigurations.

Humans no more: apocalypse and the post-socialist condition in Frozen May

The article aims to analyse how post-apocalyptic fiction is used in a recent Hungarian film to describe a post-socialist condition which is defined by a nonhuman presence. As Péter Lichter’s debut feature film Fagyott május/Frozen May (2017) is rooted both in genre and experimental cinema, the paper focuses on its dychotomic structure and its connections both with Hungarian cinema and literature. I will argue that Frozen May and other recent Hungarian films examining the topic of apocalypse offer a new interpretation of the condition of post-socialist Hungary. Due to its local historical-cultural references and concept of ‘alternative regime change’, the paper will also examine Attila Veres’s debut novel Odakint sötétebb/Darker Outside (2017).

The Zones of Twilight. Son of Saul and the Tradition of Holocaust Representation in Hungarian Full-Length Feature Films

Der Erfolg des vielfach ausgezeichneten Son of Saul hat die Aufmerksamkeit der Welt erneut auf das Paradoxon der Darstellung des Holocaust gelenkt. Die Studie untersucht zunachst die Tradition der Darstellung des Holocaust in ungarischen Spielfilmen und widmet sich auserdem jenen stilistischen Losungen, die das Paradoxon im Laszlo Nemes Film auf asthetisch innovative und gultige Weise auflosen. Von den 1950er Jahren bis zum Regimewechsel wurden die Regisseure, die sich mit dem Thema auseinander setzten, sowohl mit asthetischen als auch mit politischen Schwierigkeiten konfrontiert, da das kommunistische Regime den Holocaust nicht als nicht darstellbar, sondern in erster Linie als der Vergessenheit geweiht betrachtete. Obwohl mit dem Regimewechsel dieser politische Druck aufgehort hat zu existieren, reagiert die ungarische Gesellschaft immer noch sensibel auf das Thema des Holocaust. Der historische Uberblick vor der Analyse des Son of Saul stellt daher seine Thematik in das doppelte Licht der politischen und poetischen Sichtweisen, was allgemein auf die Filmkunst in Ungarn sowie im weiteren Sinne in der mittelosteuropaischen Region nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zutrifft.

Historical exercises: Hungarian sports films as political commentary and historical memory

Die politische Geschichte ist traditionell der offensichtlichste Rahmen fur die Interpretation des ungarischen Kinos nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Die Filmproduktion der sozialistischen Ara wurde durch die sich periodisch verandernde, systematische Prasenz politischer Erwartungen beeinflusst. Der Hauptkontext der Wahrnehmung und Interpretation von Filmen wurde durch die Politik vorgegeben. Im selben Zeitraum spielten die ungarischen Sporterfolge eine wichtige Rolle in der internationalen und innenpolitischen Politik des Regimes. Die Natur der politischen Erwartungen konnte sich nach 1989 geandert haben, aber, wie auch zeitgenossische Sportfilme bezeugen, haben politische und historische Aspekte immer noch eine starke Prasenz in Filmen. Im vorliegenden Artikel untersuche ich die politische Ideologie in ungarischen Sportfilmen, die nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg entstanden sind. Ich werde die verschiedenen Nutzungen des Sports in Filmen demonstrieren, zunachst als Instrument der Propaganda, spater als Vehikel fur direkte Kommentare zu aktuellen politischen Ereignissen und schlieslich als Vermittler historischer Erinnerung in postsozialistischen Sportfilmen. Am Ende konzentriere ich mich auf zwei zeitgenossische ungarische Produktionen ( Taxidermia , White Palms ), die als erste Filme ein extrem dusteres Bild der Kadar - Ara zeichnen; bemerkenswert ist, dass sowie die negativen Qualitaten des Sozialismus als auch die Wurzel der gegenwartigen Probleme in beiden Fallen durch den Sport symbolisch dargestellt werden.

Južnoslovenski aspekti u mađarskim filmovima

The paper explores Hungarian films that make reference to South Slavic cultures. The author examines the problems of cinematic representation and employs the methodology of imagology. The core question of the paper is how Hungarian films represent Yugoslavian (or ex-Yugoslavian) characters. Márk Bodzsár’s Heavenly Shift (Isteni műszak) is set in 1992, events on the minor storyline take place in Sarajevo, while the protagonist of the main storyline is an ethnic Hungarian from Vojvodina who illegally crossed the Serbian–Hungarian border. The story of Ibolya Fekete’s Bolse vita begins in 1989: the Russian protagonists of the film would like cross over Western Europe through Yugoslavia, and the film ends with archival footage of the ex-Yugoslavian conflict. The protagonist of Ibolya Fekete’s Chico takes part in this conflict on the Croatian side and the film depicts events of the war from this point of view. Attila Till’s Kills on Wheels (Tiszta szívvel, 2016) features a character of Serbian origin who is portrayed through devices of black humour.

Back and Forth. De-Europeanization as self-colonization in Hungarian film after 1989

ABSTRACTIn the Hungarian feature films of the years around the regime change there often occur the motifs of the journey to western Europe, migration to the West, work and career in the West. In this motion, the concept of the ‘West’ is relativized; it is articulated not geographically but as the direction of social movement, and in this sense Hungary can also stand for the ‘West’. Thus, in the years around the regime change and especially at the beginning of the post-Soviet period, (Western) Europe is conceptualized as the possible scene of liberation from the existence experienced as colonization. The motif, however, becomes truly remarkable not because of its ‘logical’ emergence around the regime change, but rather due to its survival in the works of young film directors starting their career at the turn of the millennium, then of the youngest generation of contemporary film directors. It no longer describes the physical and political exit/liberation from Soviet colonization, but the difficulty, what is more, impossibility of it, the impact of the 40-year totalitarian past upon the present. These films show that ‘Europeanization’ is superseded by ‘de-Europeanization’ and self-colonization takes the place of colonization.

You cannot be Sirius! Hungarian nationalist science fiction

ABSTRACTThis study of the Hungarian science fiction film Szíriusz/Sirius seeks to show that stifling state control and central oversight of production practices impacted on the aesthetics of Hungarian cinema. Hungarian films of the 1940s, shot on state-owned sound stages using identikit sets and costumes, offered audiences visions of a glorious past characterized by interiority and drabness that pointed to a limit to the nostalgic imagining of Hungary's past.

Popular Culture and Language Etiquette: The Use of formal and informal ‘you’ as Address Forms in selected Russian and Hungarian Films

Address forms, as key expressions of politeness are used in all cultures. They are well displayed in films which exhibit in many cases different societies of different times, and are becoming one of the biggest agents of popular culture, giving great opportunities for their use in sociolinguistic studies. This paper examines the socio-cultural aspects of the use of formal and informal ‘you’ as address forms through films in Hungarian and Russian languages. It explores the main similarities and differences between the studied societies in terms of the use of “Tu-vous” forms (Brown & Gilman, 1975). Anotacja Formy adresu jako wyrazu uprzejmości są aktualne we wszystkich kulturach narodowych. One są popularne w filmach, ktore pokazuą zachowania roznych spoleczesntw w roznych okresach historycznych. Formy te są przedstawicielami kultury popularnej. Ich rowniez mozna uzywac w lingwistyce spolecznej. W tym artykule opisaliśmy aspekty spoleczne i kulturowe formalnej i nieformalnej formy “ty” jako wyrazu adresu w filmach wegierskich i rosyjskich. W naszej pracy przedstawiono podobienstwa i roznice miedzy spoleczenstwami w stosowaniu formalnej і neformalnej formy “ty” (Brown & Gilman, 1975).

Remembering bodies: picturing the body in Hungarian cinema after the fall of communism

ABSTRACTOne of the most interesting features of contemporary Hungarian cinema is the frequent use of bodies and corpses as central tropes in films. The directors of the so-called Young Hungarian Cinema of the 2000s often build their stories around bodies in order to discuss various psychological, social and historical problems. The great number of such films seems to indicate that this phenomenon is part of an overall trend in Hungarian films that, in many cases, has a direct connection to the representation of historical memory and the depiction of post-socialist identity formation. In this article, I examine two films, István Szabó: A napfény íze/Sunshine (1999) and György Pálfi: Taxidermia (2005), that use the body as one of their main tools for dealing with the questions of historical memory and the depiction of socialist and post-socialist identity. The selection of these two films also provides an opportunity to detect the differences between the approach of two generations of filmmakers to the historicization of socialism and to the post-socialist condition.

Leave to live? Placeless people in contemporary Hungarian and Romanian films of return

This article aims to discuss the topic of migration in a corpus of contemporary Hungarian and Romanian films, with a focus on the spatial dynamics of characters trapped between institutions, places and countries. After a short outline of the historical, cultural and political backgrounds of the two cinemas, I proceed with describing the places these films represent, relying on concepts formulated by Michel Foucault, Marc Augé and Nicolas Bourriaud, among others. With the help of these sociological and cultural approaches adjusting to a fast-changing globalized world, I propose to reveal the issues raised by transnational mobility in societies still torn between East and West, tradition and modernization, a phenomenon reflected in co-productions, filmic heterotopias and a new type of artist: the radicant.

Contextualizing History in Hungarian Films of the New Millennium

Hungarian films produced after the year 2000 build on the historical reality of the fall of communism and anticipate, or come to terms with, entry into the European Union. This article will explore six films that deal with history through multiple perspectives to dramatize the dynamic between historical events and human responses to them. These films reference history, or efface it, as a way of problematizing the relationship between human behavior and history. Colossal Sensation [Világszám – Dodó és Naftalin] (2005) and Children of Glory [Szabadság, szerelem] (2006), for example, examine Hungarians’ moments of defiance during the 1956 uprising but shape historical events to fit human constructs. Contemporary history provides satire of rising capitalism in The District! [Nyócker!] (2005) whose plot weaves historical figures into a modern rendition of Romeo and Juliette. Miracle in Krakow [Csoda Krakkóban] (2004) also presents a book as its central metaphor, and, like The District!, the book allows some of history’s uglier moments to be erased. Béla Tarr’s Werkmeister Harmonies [Werkmeister harmóniák] (2000) and Nimród Antal’s Control [Kontroll] (2003), films without overt historical markers, provide allegorical visions of societal unrest that can be read as allusions to millennial concerns.

Interwar Hungarian Entertainment Films and the Reinvention of Rural Modernity

AbstractIn interwar debates about Hungarian modernity, the countryside played a prominent symbolic role. For conservative nationalists, the Hungarian countryside became a symbol and source of authentic, ‘traditional’ Hungarian national culture, unchanging, hierarchical, ordered society and stable community, and national uniqueness. Entertainment films of the 1930s provided alternative representations of the countryside that upheld the possibility of modernising traditional Hungary. According to the films, modern Hungary would be created at the intersection and out of the cooperation between rural and urban, modern and traditional. The films questioned and challenged the idea that the rural was ‘pure’, authentic, untainted, but they also rejected the idea that it was shameful, hopelessly backward, or unable to change. Showing the countryside as both traditional and part of modern mass culture, as both nostalgically stable and an exotic vacationland, the films offered an integrative vision of Hungary which destabilised assumptions of both liberals and conservatives. Popular films used the countryside to provide a unique and alternative vision of modern Hungary that was integrative and reconciliatory; they provided an outlet for a liberal, democratic, capitalist perspective unavailable elsewhere in the public sphere.