Az állampolgár

I'd recommend this movie to all people deeply interested in Budapest, Hungary these days.

It's a slow paced movie about a black, African refugee speaking intermediate Hungarian living in the capital trying to get Hungarian citizenship. It'll give you insights in Hungarian bureocracy, society, way of thinking and life of today.

Besides appearing on Netflix, the sign that made me watch it was that I met the main actor driving a tram: he's an actual African person living in the country for decades.

...and moving and profound and impressive. for a splendid script. for admirable performances. for rediscover of basic truth. for the bitter taste. for elegance. and for the realistic portrait of love, society, generosity, middle age and perspectives about life. a film as a testimony. about dramas, desie, kindness and sacrifice. about the simplicity of options. all in a perfect film. with a powerfull message who, after final credits, gives not only the satisfaction of a good film but the essential lesson about people, cultures and new way to understand humanity.

Film director, Roland Vranik, started to work on this movie way before the summer of 2015, but it became very relevant after the refugee crisis. Vranik wanted to show the Kafkaesque world of Hungarian bureaucracy through the eyes of a refugee, but he choose to alter the story after the big headlines. The movie follows Wilson, a security guard who is applying for Hungarian citizenship and trying to build a new life here. He falls in love with his teacher and helps another refugee, the Iranian Shirin, to get a legal status. However, the officers are unconcerned and rigid.

The Citizen tells a very important story and draws a portrait of who is a good citizen. This is not a movie about immigration, but about the contradicting relationship between the individual and the state. Beneath the surface, Wilson is struggling with the same problems as we do, so we can easily relate to him. Thus, the personal viewpoint avoids stereotypes and offers a natural sympathy between Wilson and the viewer. Vranik made a wise decision choosing an amateur for the main role. Dr. Cake-Baly Marcelo, who came from Bissau-Guinea more than forty years ago, is a perfect match to guide us through this labyrinthine and often cruel process.

In the movie, Wilson does not meet directly with xenophobia or racism, but rather with the reality that the immigration process is just not working. Although he is the employee of the month, finds love and has many friends, he decides to leave and start a life somewhere else. The message is clear, the system does not help, but estranges us; we are either immigrants or locals. The Citizen is a realistic, elegant, warm-hearted and bitter movie, a very emphatic and moderate voice in the hysterical cacophony.

I immigrated with my family during the last days of the Kadar era to the USA. My uncle was already living in Philly so it made greencards and citizenship easier.

We were very lucky: As climate change and inequality course through the world, the number of refugees will climb to unimaginable heights. Americans will seek refuge in their own country as parts of the USA will become uninhabitable.

So the citizen is a timely movie about many things- isolation, loneliness, being a cultural outcast, the immigration process and much else- and I wish I liked it more. But its sledgehammer style story telling and eat your spinach messaging where every thought is excruciatingly, explicitly conveyed to the viewer without subtlety, leaves much to be desired. It's a shame because the cast is mostly great, tho sometimes reduced to stock characters (the official, the racist son, the noble migrants) denied their complexity in service of a story that wants to but stops a hair shy of valorizing migrants and demonizing natives.

This is really a great film, and very topical, given the vast recent flow of refugees into Europe and North America. It's also a more accessible (in a good way) version of Fassbinder's ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL. Everything about this movie is spot-on, and four years later, Victor Orban's rule has only made things worse. Truly heartfelt.