The Top 10 Hungarian Movies – According to the French
- 8 Jun 2023 5:51 AM
With the Cannes Film Festival underway, the Hungarian Film Database (Mafab) created a top 10 list of the best Hungarian films – or films made by Hungarian directors – according to the French.
The list, which the Mafab compiled based on information from the French AlloCiné online film database, reveals that the favourite Hungarian director among the French is Béla Tarr, who has four films in the top 10.
“Pieces of a Woman” is the most recent film on the list, while Mihály Schwechtje is the youngest Hungarian filmmaker to be highly rated by the French.
The film topping the list needs no introduction. Béla Tarr’s 1994 film “Satantango” is based on the novel of the same name by László Krasznahorkai.
The seven-hour film has become a cult hit all over the world, showcasing the events happening at a collapsing collective farm from different perspectives.
The second film on the list, titled “Werckmeister Harmonies” is also a drama by Béla Tarr, based on a Krasznahorkai novel.
In the film, a naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.
Béla Tarr‘s 1988 film “Damnation”, which clinched the third place on the list, is also a Krasznahorkai adaptation, where instead of a story, only time is captured, but not in its passing, but in its circularity.
It is here that the protagonist utters the sentence that, according to some, sums up the director’s entire career: “Stories are always stories of decay.”
“Damnation” is followed by Szabolcs Hajdu‘s film “White Palms”, which explores the connections between repression and rebellion, the effects of the Kádárist past on the present and the possibility of a new beginning, through the recollections of a young gymnast.
It is followed in fifth place by István Szabó‘s 1985 movie “Colonel Redl”. The director of Mephisto won the Jury Prize at Cannes and the BAFTA for Best Film with the movie.
Nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar, in “Colonel Redl” Szabó further explores the dilemma of the individual who corrupts himself to gain and keep power.
Other films on the shortlist include Kornél Mundruczó‘s film “Pieces of a Woman“ and Attila Till‘s 2015 action-comedy “Kills on Wheels”.
Mihály Schwechtje, the youngest Hungarian filmmaker on the list, appears with Hungarian teen thriller, “Remélem legközelebb sikerül meghalnod:)” (“I hope you manage to die next time:)”).
The top 10 is rounded off by Lajos Koltay‘s film adaptation of Imre Kertész‘s Nobel Prize-winning novel “Fateless” and Béla Tarr‘s 1982 film “The Outsider”.
Cover credit: IMDb. Caption: A still from Béla Tarr’s internationally acclaimed film “Satantango”.
Source: budapestreporter.com - republished with permission
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