Sacra Corona - Die heilige Krone

Once there was the great Hungarian film industry....once... We reached the bottom for some time now. So this piece of junk truly deserves nothing, your attention at least. Perhaps we should try to respect the freedom of art and grant those who are talented and professionally acclaimed, like Istvan Szabo (Mephisto, Sunshine). This film is historically inaccurate and profesionally clumsy. 1 out of 10!

The story-line is hardly known for Non-Hungarians. King Laszlo was a Saint of the Catholic Church and his regnum was source of several legends of a hero like those about King Arthur, especially in Transylvania. This kings were descendants of the archaic Hungarian tribal leader, later Royal family Arpad. Why such an accent on religion? Saint Stephen the founder of the modern Hungarian state was an apostolic King. Overall, you need a good command of history to get all the messages not like for blockbusters as Ben Hur or the Gladiator. Many of the scenes played in wonderful old buildings existed that time already and on plots calling the landscape must had been the times the movie played in.

Sacra Corona was a very nice surprise for me after my disappointment over Koltay's previous film the Honfoglalas. The first few minutes seem to be indeed a bit "out of place" at first sight - I didn't know where to put the silent pictures. However, the film becomes more and more exciting as the story goes on. At least it became for me. I was satisfied with the acting too. The three main characters had memorable scenes. Of course the battle scenes could have been mare spectacular, they cannot challenge those of the huge budget Hollywood pictures. (Also the amount of money spent on the making of the movie cannot be compared to the Hollywood movies' with or without government support.) I am happy that this film was made. It was a good feeling to be a Hungarian during watching it.

After watching The Conquer (Honfoglalás) about the foundation of Hungary, I thought thats the worse costume movie I ever seen. I took into account that it was a low budget film, and some parts I enjoyed but still it was bad. After this, I wasn't optimistic about Sacra Corona at all. Well, I wasn't disappointed at least. Where to start...acting is weak, battle scenes are..well..laughy :) I know, no money to make them spectacular. But even without money you can teach the actors how to hold a sword. Even without money some could learn how to use the camera in battles....ahm..i could continue it for ages. I just pity that in our 1200 years old European history there is many many heroic moments, worthy of a decent film, and I wont ever see one :( This ? Forget it.

This movie was created by the financial support of the Hungarian government as part of the various celebrations of 1000 years of Hungarian statehood. This is a very respectable act, but unfortunately it wasn't enough to create an enjoyable movie. This is indeed a pity, as it could have been a very memorable costume movie. The script is based on true events of XI. century Hungarian history: the story of King László I. whose coronation closed the long chaotic interregnum after István's (the founder of the state) death and consolidated Hungary's position as a strong Christian Kingdom in medieval Europe. This story is full of battles, politics, conspiracy, hate and love. It could have been the basis for a script as exciting and deep as a Shakespeare tragedy. Unfortunately the script-writer was not able to come up with anything usable: the script is extremely weak. So is the acting, although I don't want to blame the actors too much, as it is quite hard to act well in a story falling apart. It seems that the creators of this movie were concentrationg too much on celebrating and on telling us lessons, instead of creating a good movie.