L'âge des illusions

The copy which the Hungarians told the Sydney Film Festival not to send back in 1965 (because the authorities were burning them) is still around to remind us what passed for state of the art movie in those days.

Grey monochrome images record the disillusion of the Hungarian recent engineering graduates - who are still fiddling round with radio valves. However we lose them a few reels in, to settle down to the romance of Bálint and Béres. Best scenes are the trip to the movies where her comments over the historical compilation, in which we glimpse her as a child working on the Pioneer Railroad, become voice over and they repeat this with the montage of Béres' social work clients who her advise will not help.

The bleak living conditions - lack of accommodation, slow advancement, unappealing Communist and Catholic values, don't get any more cheerful as Szabó tries to inject hectic, free wheeling camera gymnastics and citations of Truffaut. The intended echoes of the Nouvelle Vague come over as derivative.

By the time he got to "Mephisto", the director had acquired more gravitas. The sensitivity and seriousness of purpose that come without surprises is evident in both.