Somewhere in Europe ****½

 

by Allan Fish

(Hungary 1947 100m) DVD1

Aka. Valahol Európában 

Alas, poor Kuksi

p  Laszlo Szirtes  d  Géza von Radványi  w  Béla Balázs, Géza von Radványi  ph  Barnabás Hegyi  ed  Félix Máriássy, Géza von Radványi  m  Dénes Buday  art  Jószef Pán

Artur Somlay (Piotr Simon), Miklós Gábor (Péter), Zsusza Banki (Éva), György Bárdi (Police commissioner), Ladislas Horvath (Kuksi), Abraham Ronai (Ficsur), Laci Horvath, István Rozsos, Lászlo Kémeny,

If one was to ask a western critic or general cineaste about the influence of Hungarian cinema, it would be reasonable to expect them to discuss Miklós Jancsó, even more so, in that he’s of the current generation, Béla Tarr.  They might go on to discuss the works of Pál Gabor, Márta Meszaros and Istvan Szabo.  However, such discourse, though of course perfectly valid, is rather picking up the story in the middle.  Just as the same would be a mistake repeated with regard to Czech cinema, Hungarian cinema first came to real prominence just after the war with the release of two films: István Szöt’s Song of the Cornfields and this anti-war film from Géza von Radványi, scripted by the great Béla Balázs.  As Georges Sadoul said, “it’s one of the great films of the immediate post-war period.”

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