Watch out, spoilers!
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" WITNESS"/A TANÚ, 1969, Hungary, Peter Bacho.
The New Hungarian Orange
"Have mercy, I am a perfect fool!"
The new Hungarian orange is smaller, yellower, more sour, but ours.
“What is suspicious is not suspicious.
- I'm not suspicious, but I'm not an agent.
- How do you know?
- What do you think I'm an agent?
- Anything is possible.”
"Life is not cream cake!"
“All I love about myself is modesty.”
“The international situation is getting worse!”
“You will cry for me again!”
- I can swear I won't do that. ?
More than thirty years ago I watched in our film club the satirical comedy of the Hungarian director Peter Bacho “Witness”, 1969. I liked the film and remembered it for its “Hungarian Orange”, from time to time I remembered it. One day I noticed a note that from the late 80s the symbol of the national-conservative forces of Hungary was the very “Hungarian orange”, but something in the note was clearly distorted and then I decided to find this film and watch.
The film takes place in the 50s, Jozsef Pelican is a father of many children, a small mind, but quite an honest man, a faithful communist with an anti-fascist past, works as a watchman on the dam. Once, making another roundabout, I encountered a poacher who killed a fish without permission, it turned out that this was Minister Zoltan Daniel, with whom he was familiar in wartime, moreover, sheltered him from the Nazis in his basement. After Zoltan fell into the water, and Jozsef pulled him out and brought him home to dry and warm up, Pelican’s misadventures begin – the path from a casual witness to a fishing trip to the main witness of the prosecution. Each of his new appointments at the behest of a security worker to higher and higher positions invariably ends in prison, but fate protects him and in the end he is still free. Despite the theme, the film looks very good, it is shot without any such animal seriousness that not only does not detract from its merits, but is clearly beneficial, so it does not look outdated.
I forgot the Hungarian cinema, and it was actually very good, it is a pity that lately there are no Hungarian films and I do not know what they are now.
In conclusion, the film quotes Marx’s famous statement (although it referred to Lucian’s Conversations, in which he mocked the Greek gods):
“Why does history move like this? Then, that humanity, laughing, part with its past.
Unfortunately, humanity is not doing this, it is too serious.