Adoção

Based on the first 30 min, which was all I could take, this film, consisting mostly of chain smoking Hungarians earnestly and humorlessly conversing about motherhood and adoption, seems designed to repel viewers. C minus.

Marta Meszaros brings a subtle, yet effective critique of both communist Hungary and the patriarchal system that existed there in the mid 1970s. This film does move slowly, but that is part of what makes it great. It is shot in the social realism style. This means that there are long drawn-out shots, often with little dialogue. Slow camera movements are also a hallmark of this style. Since Adoption was made well outside of the Hollywood system, it does not adhere to the conventions that many American moviegoers would expect. If action-adventure is your kind of movie, skip this one. If, however, you are intrigued by a well told story pertaining to everyday life, this film is worth checking out.

One of the great films about women made by a woman, Marta Meszaros' "Adoption" is about the most fundamental need of many women, to be a mother. Kata is a 43 year old widow, living alone but having an affair with a married man who is not prepared to leave his wife. One day she asks him to father a child with her, which she will raise alone, but he refuses. Then she meets Anna, a young girl from the local boarding school, who asks Kata if she can use her house to meet her boyfriend. A friendship develops between them that might lead to all their problems being solved.

Meszaros shoots her film mostly in close-ups as if by focusing on these faces we are also getting inside their heads. It's an unusual treatment of an unusual subject, one that in an American film would have been sentimentalised out of all proportion. As Kata, Katalin Berek is extraordinarily good and the director, one-time wife of Miklos Jansco, never deviates from the intensity of her subject, making this a deeply moving film. Not much seen these days, this remains a key film of the seventies.

Beautiful black and white cinematography full of close-ups and the depiction of faces, details and of factory workers. Good acting depicting a sudden relationshipt that arises and develops between an unmarried woman who wants a baby (and her married boyfriend does not) and a teenager who has been abandoned by her parents and wants to marry her boyfriend. By helping and listening the latter, the former understands better her own situation and makes decisive decisions. I am not entirely convinced about the development of any of these two characters, and the so much mentioned troubled life of the girl and the labour condition of the woman seem not to seriously influence their attitude along the story. Script perhaps does not show enough coherence (the slap being the most gratuitous moment, perhaps) despite the slow time dedicated to dialogues.

Katalin Berek has a checkup She's 42 and wants to see if she can have a child. She wants one, but her lover doesn't. He is a married man, and they understand he's not going to leave his family. Miss Berek is trying to write a letter apologizing for upsetting him when Gyöngyvér Vigh walks into her life. Miss Vigh has her own letter, this one to her mother saying she's been neglected, and she is going off to lead her own life. Then, while she's putting her own life in order, she stays with Miss Berek.

Márta Mészáros's movie about what defines family is neither subtle nor deep, but watching Miss Berek figure it out on her own is rather interesting, and reasonably paced; I never grew impatient with her not getting it sooner. Even the 1970s depression that hangs over this movie and never quite lifts seems appropriate.