A tanú

I rank this with "Dr. Strangelove" as one of the funniest political satires I have ever seen. I saw it about 18 years ago at the Mill Valley Film Festival in Marin County, California. I am not Hungarian and have never lived under communism, yet I laughed out of recognition at Peter Bocso's critique of a system so involved with policing itself against imaginary reactionaries that it stops taking care of practical business. The hero is an everyman in charge of flood control at a dam. He is taken to the capital to be a witness in a show trial. Meanwhile, who is minding the dam? While he waits for the court to call on him, the star witness is given a series of do-nothing jobs for which he would not be qualified even if they weren't bogus. The funniest involves supervising the development of the first Hungarian orange (Magyar naranz?) which actually turns out to be a lemon. Is it politically incorrect to call a lemon "a lemon"?

Thanks to my Hungarian colleague, who lent me the DVD, I watched this interesting and excellent movie. And what a movie it was!

From the beginning till the end, this absurd drama entertains, amuses and at the same time, makes one think. The best point of this movie is the central character, who is a simple person, who does not know how to protest, who believes that all the decisions taken by (and the words uttered by) the Comrades in power must be correct, and who therefore obeys their orders unquestioned, and yet tries to be innovative, and thus unwittingly exposes the stupidity and absurdity that lies at the core of their ideology.

I never knew that Hungary makes good movies (maybe because of the more widely known movies and movie makers from Poland and Czech; though I was told that Hungary produces perhaps the best brains in the world, at least, in Mathematics.), but now I know it otherwise.

If you like a good political satire, just watch it.

There is much more to reality in this movie than it seems. Many of the characters, motives and stories are based on reality. The main story line - the concept trial of minister Daniel and his group is about the concept trial of communist leader and minister Rajk. He was an ideologist communist and they said that he could be the next leader of Hungary after Rakosi who was the Stalinist leader of Hungary between 1949 and 1956. Rajk had different ideas than Rakosi on many questions. He got apprehended in 1949. He had a public trial where everything was pre-arranged. The false accusation and the testimonies of the witnesses were written by Rákosi's administration and Moscow. The witnesses were prepared and trained by the ÁVH (Hungarian KGB). Many intellectuals actually did believe in communism but after the Rajk trial and the mystic disappearance of people on a mass scale showed everyone the true face of the Rákosi regime. It was very uncertain whether Bacsó can make the film at all. The party made some suggestions. For example the original script referred to the traitor Daniel as the "Daniel gang" like Rajk and his friends were called the "Rajk gang". The censors asked Bacsó to alter the term "gang" to "group" as the term gang was a too clear reference to Rajk.

The characters: - There was a major party member and army general who was the model of comrade Bástya. - Comrade Virág was based on the much feared ÁVH leader Péter Gábor. ÁVH did took a lot of people from their homes in the middle of the night in black, curtained cars. They tried to convince and break people by being both brutal and nice. Comrade Virág uses all kind of methods to drive Pelikán to be the key witness. Also the clothes of the ÁVH agents are very much like the real and Virág's room has many references how some party leaders were thinking and living.

Pelikán's jobs: - Swimming pool: There was a major party member who used to get one of Budapest's major swimming pools emptied when he wanted to swim. This comrade kept this habit even in the seventies. - Theme park: The original name of the Hungarian theme park was really English Park that has changed sometime in the Rákosi regime. Also the scenic railway really had a communist version where they showed how the society evolved (according to Engels' theory). - Hungarian orange: It is true that Hungarians wanted to grow orange in Hungary. The project was launched by Rákosi himself.

There are also a lot of references in the movie to real persons and events most of which can be understood by the ones actually lived in Hungary in the 50's. Bacsó said that the last scene where comrade Virág and Pelikán met on the tram and the tram door closed very much resembled the days when the film was made. Although the Stalinist Rákosi regime was over the and the prisoners of the 50's and their guards were still there. They traveled on the closed tram together like fishes in an aquarium.

As being a Hungarian myself, I might have a soft spot for this film, but I find it extremely funny anyway.

However, I feel I should add some background to those who never lived in a totalitarian personality cult. An era where the best was to keep your mouth shut even among your best friends, for you could not be sure who will report on you. In an era where a big black car might have stopped at your house in the middle of the night to take you and never let you go again. In an era where when deciding about executives, it was your loyalty that mattered not your skill or know-how. Where everyone stated the lemon to be an orange, if it was the dictum of the leaders. Where not clapping hard enough when "our leader" Rakosi addressed the crowd was enough for imprisonment.

All the events described in this film might seem absurd - but I have to say they easily could have and did happen during the '50s in the East of Europe.

Although the regime softened a bit, in 1969 making this film was still not the safest thing to. Not surprisingly it wasn't aired for almost a decade. But since then, it became a cult film by any means. Lines like "Well, comrade Pelikan, life is not all beer and skittles.." are known and quoted by everyone. Yes, laughing at them is mortal to any dictatures...

The saddest and funniest thing, it is actually NOT a satire...