A terrible piece of postwar communist propaganda
Besides of doused with Communist propaganda - part of the foreplay which led to a terrible dictatorship in a few years, yet still playing nice and democratic - this is also a terribly bad movie. Those who think I might be wrong because it was voted among the best Hungarian movies, think again. Of course it was - in the Communist times. If you view it that way, then it's indeed a good movie, it fulfills all the requirements of Stalin's and Rakosi's approval. But anyway...
There is no established storyline in this piece of awfulness. The kids run away from an orphanage. For some reason the orphanage contains a theme park with a panopticum of Nazi leaders, in which Hitler is melting during a bombing raid. After a set of forced symbolics, our heroes are on the road - leading nowhere. They meet an old musician who teaches them about how great the French Revolution was, and we also see a former Nazi putting away his uniform and taking up a new role in a new society. And so, what else? The entire story leads nowhere, it's shallow and illogical.
Technically the movie is also a disaster. There are basic editing mistakes, eg. there is a scene which was inserted reversed (see the boat under the bridge actually going backwards), the camera sometimes goes out of focus, equipment gets visible, animals stare at the crew (ie. a dog in the foreground). It's a school example of how the Communists recruited all-thumbs amateurs to replace the great experts of Hungarian movie industry who all fled abroad or died during the war. In its time this movie was heralded as the "greatest movie of all times", its makers were celebrated countrywide, and this lie is kept alive even today, with all the hype around this crap. It's OK to watch if you wish to see something North Korea would produce these days, in a contemporary fashion. But as a movie - forget about it.
There is no established storyline in this piece of awfulness. The kids run away from an orphanage. For some reason the orphanage contains a theme park with a panopticum of Nazi leaders, in which Hitler is melting during a bombing raid. After a set of forced symbolics, our heroes are on the road - leading nowhere. They meet an old musician who teaches them about how great the French Revolution was, and we also see a former Nazi putting away his uniform and taking up a new role in a new society. And so, what else? The entire story leads nowhere, it's shallow and illogical.
Technically the movie is also a disaster. There are basic editing mistakes, eg. there is a scene which was inserted reversed (see the boat under the bridge actually going backwards), the camera sometimes goes out of focus, equipment gets visible, animals stare at the crew (ie. a dog in the foreground). It's a school example of how the Communists recruited all-thumbs amateurs to replace the great experts of Hungarian movie industry who all fled abroad or died during the war. In its time this movie was heralded as the "greatest movie of all times", its makers were celebrated countrywide, and this lie is kept alive even today, with all the hype around this crap. It's OK to watch if you wish to see something North Korea would produce these days, in a contemporary fashion. But as a movie - forget about it.
- tomcat-350-27521
- Apr 30, 2013