The career of film director Dezső Zsigmond spans more than three decades and is impressive even when seen in quantitative terms: he has over one hundred titles to his name, the majority being television reports and documentaries, alongside seven feature films and one television play. He began his professional path under the auspices of the BBS [Balázs Béla Stúdió; an influential Hungarian film workshop active from the 1960s, known for its experimental and documentary work], and later the MIT (Mozgókép Innovációs Társulás; [lit. Motion Picture Innovation Association]). The most striking influences on his formal sensibility stem from the defining works of Hungarian documentary filmmaking in the 1960s–70s, from which he primarily adapted the tools of film sociology and the grotesque. [1]
Thematically, Zsigmond’s starting point lay in reflecting on the democracy deficit of the late Kádár era [the final decades of state socialism in Hungary], followed by an exploration of the events of the 1956 Revolution and their lasting impact – an event regarded as a foundational moral reference for the post-1989 Third Hungarian Republic. At the same time, beginning from his native region, and expanding outward in ever wider geographical circles, he sought to reveal the personal and local character of rural and Hungarian ethnic minority communities through portraits, reports, and observational documentaries. In his feature films, he re-interpreted these experiences; as a formal and conceptual experiment, he also explored how the worlds of his documentary subjects, Csángó folk ballads, and the conventions of genre cinema (thriller, crime) might interact. This study examines the most characteristic works of Zsigmond’s oeuvre in the light of their critical reception. [2]
Zsigmond began his career as a journalist; even during his college years he worked in radio and produced television programming together with his friend and dormitory roommate, János Erdélyi [documentary director]. [3] Fortune in filmmaking favoured these “journalist kids” [4] when, under the direction of László B. Révész [film director and theorist], the KISZ Kísérleti Filmstúdió (KISZ Experimental Film Studio [a youth organisation-funded film workshop in late state-socialist Hungary]), and later the circles of the BBS, offered them the opportunity to make films. Their first more substantial work already demonstrated an acute sense of topicality: Jelölöm magam (Voting Myself, 1985), produced at the MIT [5], serves as a case study in how pluralistic political elements cannot simply be installed into public life by decree after a prolonged period of democratic deficit. [6]
Their film Ez zárkózott ügy (This Is a Withdrawn Case, 1986) likewise examines the real possibilities of democracy behind the slogans of public discourse, and the film’s fate itself reveals the same contradiction. The filmmakers recall that the work was banned; contemporary documentation, [7] however, suggests that from the mid-1980s onwards it was less a matter of formal prohibition and more the quiet prevention of public screenings.
In early 1983, they began investigating news from Gyöngyöshalászi, the village of Zsigmond’s father, where the long-serving council chairman, László Lévai, had been removed from office. The vast majority of the villagers rallied in support of Lévai, who had led the community for twenty-two years. Local tensions, contradictory statements, and above all, the resistance of party and state officials [8] soon brought filming to a halt. As a workaround, the filmmakers gathered those willing to speak at a table in Jászárokszállás, [9] away from the village itself. Yet in the wide-ranging discussion, the central issue was never addressed: why Lévai had been dismissed. The film thus records a power technique that, in official rhetoric, spoke of openness while in concrete situations remained thoroughly closed (hence the film’s title): a strategy of wearing down resistance. Without responses from local or county-level party leadership, Erdélyi and Zsigmond found themselves in stalemate.
The resulting material was not allowed to be screened by film professionals, who judged it one-sided – a criticism that was, in fact, valid. On the part of the political authorities, however, even the persistent efforts and adept diplomacy of Ferenc Kőhalmi (film director-general) [10] could not elicit a statement from anyone. [11]
The essence of direct political control during this period lay in its “marionette-like” character: directives remained insider knowledge, delivered informally. As film historian Gábor Gelencsér has pointed out:
“Therefore, one must attend to the effect of politics on art, yet where can this effect be located? In the decisions operating the film-institutional system? Yet one characteristic feature of cultural-political governance at the time was precisely that genuinely significant instructions were never put in writing. A confused and opaque situation was intentionally created, in which artists could be kept in continual uncertainty; clear boundaries were absent – if the era had a ‘cultural line’, this was it. But how can one ‘research’ corridor conversations? The only remaining possibility is to interview the participants still accessible about everything that was never recorded in minutes. Yet can film historiography rely on necessarily subjective recollections? It is evident that no fully satisfactory answers can be given to these questions – and this is likely a methodological difficulty that Hungarian film historiography cannot easily circumvent.” [12]
The sociologist László Bruszt supported his analysis of the two films [13] with empirical surveys, reinforcing the documented condition of systemic vulnerability. [14]
The next work by the directing duo, Vérrel és kötéllel (With Blood and Rope, 1989), demonstrates the effect that the late socialist period of political opening and cautious optimism had on documentary practice. Here we see individuals who recount the accumulated pains of decades, sometimes to the point of incantation, determined above all to speak their truth. Yet the film does not focus on grievances alone; its centre is the desire for clarification. Following the political changes of 1989, the film moves beyond the earlier situation in which only statements made against a distant, faceless and monolithic authority could be recorded. It became possible to represent genuine situations of dialogue. The former holder of power, István Dudás, went among the people, spoke with them, and even agreed to submit to a procedure examining his responsibility, despite not regarding himself as guilty. [15]
At the 22nd Magyar Filmszemle (Hungarian Film Week), [16] “among documentary films, With Blood and Rope (directed by János Erdélyi and Dezső Zsigmond) received the documentary category award for its dramatic depiction of the 1956 Revolution and its lasting consequences.” This was the justification given by the jury led by István Szőts, selecting the film from an exceptionally strong field.
In the period immediately following the political transition of 1989, the production of documentary interview films accelerated, since “memory wears thin.” [17] Nearly forty years had passed since the Revolution, the number of eyewitnesses was dwindling, and the few surviving documents required careful source criticism, including comparison with oral testimonies. The strong impact of With Blood and Rope and its continuation Sortűz után (lit. After the Volley of Shots, dir. János Erdélyi, 2006) [18] lies precisely in their oral history character. In the former, one can clearly sense the liberating effect of 1989; in the latter, the mood is marked by scepticism. The participants, disappointed by the outcomes of the political transition, had not expected that the Dudás trial would end inconclusively, that “practically no verdict would be delivered”. During the proceedings, [19] they hoped that the identity of the person who issued the order to fire would be revealed. This did not happen. [20] The lasting merit of the two films is that they precisely record the historical moment of their making, which makes them repeatedly valuable for historical source research. [21]
The Mosonmagyaróvár volley was one of those mass killings for which it is likely that the full course of events can never be established with certainty. Beyond the distortions inherent in the collective trauma that followed, the principal reason is that the Kádár regime attached its own interpretative framework to the events and rewarded its dissemination for the consolidation of its power, while severely punishing accounts that diverged from it. [22] The decades-long practice of “double speech” produced deeply ingrained and divergent layers of meaning. What is certain is that on 26 October 1956, soldiers fired into a crowd marching to the Mosonmagyaróvár barracks while singing the Himnusz [Hymn, the Hungarian national anthem] and the Szózat [Appeal, a national patriotic song]. Yet individual testimonies, official accounts, and court documents contradict one another at many points. According to the indictment in the Dudás trial, the volley resulted in more than fifty deaths, which corresponds to the “necessary minimum” of figures suggested by other sources. [23] Attempts to establish responsibility were already made during the political transition. With Blood and Rope documents the fact-finding assembly organised in 1989 in Kiskunhalas by the Magyar Demokrata Fórum [MDF, Hungarian Democratic Forum, the first governing party after 1989], [24] where both István Dudás, the former barracks commander, and the inhabitants of Mosonmagyaróvár presented their recollections.
The historian and political scientist István Schlett regarded the directors’ impartial working method as the film’s greatest strength.
“If I were a judge, I would not dare to deliver a verdict. I could not determine who remembered accurately and who selectively, who spoke the truth and who lied, saving himself or trembling with desire for revenge. János Erdélyi and Dezső Zsigmond did not help in this. Yet fortunately they did not assume the role of prosecutor or defence counsel, but made a film. A harrowing film about the survivors of the Mosonmagyaróvár volley of shots and the reprisals that followed – the lynching of three army officers and the subsequent ‘lawful’ execution of seven people.” [25]
What made a strong impression on Schlett was the ability to see, on the faces of the participants, the ossified traces of decades of self-justification. It is such small details that transform recorded testimony from mere documentation into film. [26] Remaining in the background according to the principle of sine ira et studio [without anger and without bias], the directors created “one of the most authentic and most moving films in recent years about 1956, about the participants, the survivors, the history that lives within us, and about how the system operated.” [27]
Az eltűnt idő nyomában (lit. In Search of Lost Time, 1992) recalls one of the many human tragedies of the Revolution: that of Lajos Somogyi. A First Lieutenant and one of the military leaders of the Kaposvár Workers’ Council, Somogyi returned home to Kecel during the wave of arrests that followed the defeat of the uprising. In March 1957 he was taken into police custody, but managed to escape in a moment of opportunity. His family hollowed out a pit beneath the duck shed and hid him there. For years, the police harassed them. Somogyi’s nervous system deteriorated; it was his wife who sustained him, while in his agony he began to crochet and draw. His young son believed his father dead. Upon hearing news of the amnesty of 4 April 1963, Somogyi – who had gained twenty kilograms and could hardly walk – emerged from the pit. At the military prosecutor’s office he was told that no record could be found of any proceedings ever having been initiated against him.
The story, which narrates the effects of the inhuman mechanisms of political power down to the physical decomposition of the body, is told in the documentary through the words and faces of those directly involved. Their sorrowful brokenness stands in painful contrast to the elegant, cosmopolitan literary allusion of the title, for how could one possibly recover lost time when the madeleine is replaced by duck manure: the waste flowed into the pit from the shed. Every day, throughout six years, in heat and frost.
In their later reworking of the story, their second [28] feature-length film, Az asszony (The Woman, 1995), the directors focused on the figure of the wife (played by Anna Györgyi). Critics praised the actors, [29] yet expected more from the film itself. [30]
A similar pattern can be observed in the case of A határon (lit. On the Border) and its feature film adaptation A rózsa vére (Blood of the Rose, 1998). [31] According to Károly Csala, the protagonists of the film are people who, “under better circumstances, would all have remained upright, law-abiding and honourable,” yet are driven by economic necessity into illegal activities. [32] Set in the Hungarian–Ukrainian border region, the narrative consists entirely of what might be called moral border cases: the personal fate of almost every character is decided along the narrow line between crime and honour. Csala identifies the film’s weakness in the fact that “the reference to reality” here evokes a tabloid world (gangsters, criminals), which the director does not sufficiently elevate into the realm of fiction. In a more sharply worded gonzo-style critique, Sándor Turcsányi was even more severe in his assessment of Blood of the Rose. [33]
From the mid-1990s onwards, we can observe a shift in focus in Zsigmond’s career: his mode of filmmaking became increasingly centred on individual personalities. The starting point of the cinematic journey is no longer primarily the subject matter but the person. The palette is enriched by a new tone, that of the grotesque, and the recurrent documentary–feature film method reflects this change as well. Nem akarják irigyelni a holtakat (lit. They Do Not Want to Envy the Dead, 1996), an empathetic documentary portrait of Árpád Fogarasi, the builder of the atomic bunker in Kocsord, is infused with grotesque overtones. Its counterpart thirteen years later, the feature film Bunkerember (The Bunkerman, 2009), intended as a comedy, is grotesque in its entirety.
The duality that from this point onward becomes characteristic of Zsigmond’s oeuvre – the bizarre dimensions of the grotesque on one end, and a purity not devoid of strangeness on the other – may be illustrated by placing Bizarr románc (A Bizarre Romance – Rural Decameron, 2000) and Csigavár (Snail Fortress, 2004) side by side. In A Bizarre Romance, the very exposition is already depressing, confronting the viewer with portraits of villagers who, deprived of opportunities, drift into makeshift, compensatory acts. As Lóránt Stőhr writes of the story:
“[Jóska,] the poor devil, who cannot find either wife or lover among the worn-down village women, tries in his despair to mount a donkey – and then, most unfortunately, falls in love with the beautiful blonde shop assistant. […] She is beauty itself among the ruins of vegetating decay. […] The shop assistant, standing out from her environment, is seduced by the owner of the sex-doll manufacturing company with the promise that she will serve as the model for a prototype. […] Jóska’s love story could end here, but – halfway through a film that moves forward snail-slow despite its brisk cuts – a miraculous twist occurs: the hopeless fool, spying on the lovers, discovers the sex-doll workshop, which, with its red lights, the peculiar cold glow illuminating the suspended figures, and its laboratory sterility, resembles an enchanted castle.” [34]
Jóska, choosing the sex doll as his wife in place of the unattainable shop assistant, punishes the loss of his brief happiness with a double murder. According to Stőhr, the film “moves from the grotesque to the tragic in such a way that it leaves the viewer behind,” [35] leading the critic to conclude that shaping the story into burlesque might have been more effective than rounding it into tragedy.
The protagonist of Snail Fortress is likewise alone; she also sleeps in the same room with her parents. “The essence of Terézke is precisely what is not visible.” [36] At the beginning of the 2000s, Zsigmond discovered the distinctiveness of the Transylvanian landscape and its inhabitants. [37] The shared underlying motif of Snail Fortress and A Bizarre Romance draws attention to the way in which life situations are confronted, to “what is not visible.” Snail Fortress is, without exaggeration, remarkable; according to contemporary critics and the record of awards, it is one of Zsigmond’s most accomplished works. As Tibor Kovácsy observed:
“Snail Fortress, the underground structure named in the film’s title, can no longer be entered, just as no exit can be seen behind the quietly solitary and steadily advancing years of Terézke, the cheerful and attractive woman of forty who still lives with her parents. But this simple parallel is not the meaning of this beautifully calm, contemplative film; its meaning lies in a filmic attitude radically opposed to the one previously shown. Rural everyday life, fieldwork, a cow calving, cooking, a dance at the village pub, a hopeless suitor offering a serenade, the bathtub in the garden, lovingly arranged old toys, faded dolls, heartbreakingly cheap keepsakes, insignificant little objects. The filming unfolds among the requisites of everyday rural life, among tools and animals; the seasons pass, and, in a broken and halting rhythm, the fragments of a slowly unfolding inner life are pieced together – a life pure of spirit, peaceful, and unwearied even by directionless waiting – but into what, in the end? Into themselves, above all. Into the quietly accepted daily occurrences of ‘things being as they are’, in which beauty resides only inwardly, yet this inward beauty elevates and transforms the fragments of the external world into poetry. And Terézke embraces all this with self-aware serenity, and within it, herself.” [38]
The film that provoked the most debate in Zsigmond’s career was the observational documentary Élik az életüket (Slice of Their Lives – Sub-Carpathian Soap-Opera, 2006). Its protagonists, Kati and Nóri, live with their third sibling, Imi, in the house they inherited from their parents in Csetfalva, a village in Sub-Carpathia [or Transcarpathia: a region in western Ukraine with a historic ethnic Hungarian population], together with Kati’s daughter, Szabina. Kati had lived comfortably with Laci in Hungary, yet left him because she did not love him. The family is so poor that securing daily bread is a struggle. Nóri takes Kati’s partner, yet Kati moves in with them again with Szabina, unable to stay with their alcoholic brother. That winter, Imi freezes to death. Kati moves to Volodya in Beregszász, places Szabina in a boarding school, and begins drinking. The child wishes to return to Csetfalva; a relative would be willing to adopt her, but Kati refuses to relinquish her daughter. For her child’s sake, she quits drinking, and Szabina moves back to live with them.
The director met Laci, the father in the film, in Tiszacsécse, [39] and came to know the rest of the family. During the making of the film, he “lived their life with them”. As Zsigmond described this mode of filmmaking: “If the participants do not accept you as a friend, there is no film – or at least not this kind of film. At first, I often do not even think of filmmaking; I simply get to know people. […] The very loose framework must be maintained only as long as it has meaning, that is, at the moment when reality begins to break through, I must hold myself back; then suddenly, ‘life begins to happen’. They begin to live their lives.”
From this film onward, Zsigmond often retrospectively applies the term “situational documentary” to describe his work. He employs elements associated with feature filmmaking, with the aim of preventing the viewer from observing events from a safe distance. This type of camera creates an attractive but dangerous proximity, as if it were slipping under the skin of the subjects. In the story of Kati and her family, what we see is not an depressing sociographic report, but a difficult and deeply human drama. [40]
Út Călăraşi-ba – Egy sikeres vállalkozó arcképe (lit. Road to Călărași – Portrait of a Successful Entrepreneur, 2007), perhaps Zsigmond’s most economical portrait, demonstrates the flexibility and democratic nature of his method. In Living Their Lives, the tonal palette is heavy and intense, while the portrait of János Kurkó, the entrepreneur from Miercurea Ciuc [Hungarian: Csíkszereda, a predominantly Hungarian-speaking town in eastern Transylvania, central to the Székely cultural region], unfolds within a lighter framework that leaves room for humour. The essence of this flexibility lies in the fact that the specific tonalities and linguistic registers of each film are not imposed by the director, but arise from the subjects themselves. The destitute – Kati and her family – remain bound together through hardship and care; the millionaire lives alone in the barren room of his own hotel. Zsigmond’s gaze is equally attentive and compassionate toward the “poor rich man” and the “rich poor.”
He intended his next feature film, Boszorkánykör (Witch Circle, 2009), originally bearing the working title Vadlány (lit. Wild Girl), as a form of summation. In it, he wove together many of his central themes and brought together almost all the Transylvanian subjects dear to him. In his documentaries, he had already applied stylistic tools of feature filmmaking; in his feature films, he incorporated real-life elements. In Witch Circle, he ultimately cast the protagonists of his documentaries. Terézke, Sister Józsi, Emil – to the extent possible on film – present themselves, bringing with them their own environment and atmosphere. Most distanced from his real-life role is János Kurkó, who plays a police detective gradually absorbed by a landscape and belief-system that prove inscrutable to him.
The director and screenwriter Zsigmond summarised the completed work as follows:
“Two detectives stumble into a strange case: they begin to investigate a fatal stabbing. The perpetrator’s wife – who happens to be a vadlány [a ‘wild girl’ figure of Transylvanian folk imagination] – loses her mind from the shock and sets out among the huts of the Gyimes region in search of traces. One of the policemen disappears under mysterious circumstances, while the other falls in love with the wild girl, and they even have a child – his fate becomes intertwined not only with the landscape, but it also emerges that he himself was born of a wild girl.” [41]
Judging from the critical reception, few understood the story in the way Zsigmond did. [42] He sought to compress a considerable number of elements into the film, as indicated by the fact that, aside from himself, five screenwriters and dramaturgs contributed to it. The narrative, described as “magical realist,” and the powerful, everyday environment from which it was drawn and to which Zsigmond sought to return it “as a story,” ultimately proved divergent. What Zsigmond incorporated verbatim, with the intention of preserving couleur locale, worked against the fiction. [43]
Similar contradictions weaken The Bunkerman (2009), a film that is strong in its documentary raw material. [44] In an interview, [45] the director clarified:
“The Bunkerman is not about Árpád Fogarasi himself, but about people like him. […] The film is not about how mad the builder of an atomic bunker is, but about how mad the world around him is. The fictional Árpád, like the legendary Kőműves Kelemen [Clement Mason, a Hungarian ballad figure who entombs his beloved in the walls he builds], walls human fates into his bunker. The dialogues show that Árpád’s mind always revolves around the atomic shelter. His wife leaves him for a time with their child. When he visits her, they embrace passionately, but upon hearing news of an experimental nuclear detonation on the radio, he tears himself away from her kisses and rushes back to continue building the bunker. Witch Circle was constructed almost fifty percent from documentary elements. The Bunkerman contains only negligible documentary traces; it is essentially a classical feature film. We intended it as a comedy. During editing and at test screenings, we noticed that the invited viewers did not always laugh where we expected. It became clear that so many dramatic elements had entered the material that it had turned into a grotesque. So much so that this became my most grotesque film.” [46]
For the sake of a complete perspective, it should be added that even experienced genre filmmakers would have struggled to produce a strong comedy in eighteen shooting days and on a minimal budget. [47]
In the title of his review, Messze Hrabaltól (lit. Far from Hrabal), Péter Mátyás [48] alludes to the film’s striving toward the grotesque, [49] while Barnabás Németh argues that the creators of The Bunkerman did not take into account the changed media environment. [50]
At the same time, the director has a precise sense of how technological underdevelopment continues to set back rural communities. “Tradition lies in ruins, yet prosperity and high-tech have failed to arrive. The fate of the Hungarian village can only be improved by harmonising tradition and progress”, he concludes. [51] Despite its staggering poverty, he sees the Hungarian countryside as rich in diversity, with sustaining power rooted in both its natural environment and its human character. For him, peasant life – a harsh and demanding way of living – means far more than urban existence, and he laments that with the disappearance of rural traditions, villages are slowly becoming scarcely distinguishable from suburban outskirt districts.
In his later trilogy Három királyok (lit. Three Kings, 2013) and the two-part film Kolompok nyelvén (lit. In the Language of Cowbells, 2014), he continues to explore what remains of tradition. In Gyékénykoporsó (lit. Wicker Coffin, 2014), [52] he revisits Bálint Balla, the protagonist of one of his earlier films. [53] The elderly man has sold his cows and now buys milk from a van imitating the sound of cowbells. He still works a little – mowing, hoeing – and weaves his own coffin from bulrush. He wishes to have his body set afloat on the River Tisza in it when the time comes. [54]
Measured against his experience in Western Europe, [55] Zsigmond regards the depth of rural deprivation in Hungary as tragic. “If, instead of this, there had been more comprehensive mechanisation, and if from a tourism perspective there had been assistance to restore these astonishingly beautiful landscapes across the entire Carpathian Basin, everything could have unfolded differently. These places possess tremendous tourist potential, but for it to function, what is needed is a form of modernisation that also takes tradition into account. The reality, however, is that those who hold the key to the cashbox, who could make this happen, choose to invest the money elsewhere. What will become of the countryside – and more importantly, what will become of the people who live there?” [56]
In A rákok királya (The King of Crabs, 2014) [57] and especially in Egy passió kálváriája (lit. Calvary of a Passion, 2014), we observe a return to the public and communal orientation that characterised the early phase of Zsigmond’s career. The King of Crabs attempts to show what talented and well-intentioned individuals might achieve if they were given genuine opportunity. Mihály Csukrán, who in 1992 won the national team championship in boxing with Vasas, once trained alongside István “Kokó” Kovács [Hungarian Olympic gold-medal–winning boxer, later a professional world champion]. He lived a wild and excessive life before returning to his home village, Újfehértó, to care for his parents when they fell ill, remaining with them until their deaths. Left alone, he realised the degree of poverty and neglect among the children around him. From his modest pension, he built a makeshift gym, trains the children, and takes them on summer camps.
The other two central figures of the Three Kings trilogy are likewise remarkable. Sándor Szántó of A láp királya (lit. The King of the Marsh), strives to lead a full life despite blindness. Celestin Lőrincz in A háló királya (lit. The King of the Network), paralysed after an accident, operates the Moldavian Csángó Rádió from the small room of a peasant house, connecting those who remain at home with those forced to work abroad. The trilogy presents exemplary paths carved by individuals who were compelled to create possibilities where none existed institutionally – neither for themselves nor for their communities.
Calvary of a Passion demonstrates a similarly symptomatic case. The small Bakony village of Magyarpolány had long performed its own annual Passion play, involving nearly the entire community. Through this mystery play, the village became known across Europe, bringing an increase in tourism. When a new mayor was elected, he obstructed the continuation of the traditional Passion and commissioned a new one. The village split according to loyalties and interests. Gusztáv Schubert, in his review, praised the film’s political neutrality:
“One of the great merits of the direction is that it does not interpret the Magyarpolány Passion’s calvary in the framework of contemporary party politics. Rightly so, for there is no trace of ideological or religious antagonism. (…) What appears with pure clarity is the unholy trinity of envy, ill-will, and greedy acquisitiveness.” [58]
For Schubert, the Magyarpolány episode stands as a teachable narrative. The story can be filmed, and the film can be shown; that is to say, the conditions of communication are considerably better now than they were at the beginning of Zsigmond’s career, at the time of This Is a Withdrawn Case. What remains unchanged, however, are negative human traits, which persist whether we like it or not.
In 2009, assessing two decades of documentary production, Sándor Sára [Hungarian filmmaker and cinematographer] [59] offered the following evaluation of Dezső Zsigmond: [60] “I find Zsigmond’s attempts interesting. Sometimes they succeed more, sometimes less, but there is always something individual in them.”
The most striking strength of Zsigmond’s films is his unmistakable way of seeing. His exceptional sensitivity to subject matter and his ability to create a self-contained world are characteristic of both his documentaries and his feature films. The works of his career to date form noteworthy, coherent, and deeply personal imprints of the periods in which they were made. His films preserve, as subjective time capsules, the contradictions of the era spanning from the years immediately preceding the political transition of 1989 to the present day, capturing those aspects of our shared history that their creator sought to record.
[2016]
[1] Ádám Nagy writes the following on the cinematic background:
“In the late 1960s, grotesque documentary films appeared, depicting (often newspaper-derived) contradictory situations in a light, satirical, or at times dramatic register. An example of lightness is the awkward pub-opening ceremony in Hosszú futásodra mindig számíthatunk (We Can Always Count on Your Long-Distance Running, dir. Gyula Gazdag, 1968) in a remote village, or the endless debates in A krokodil (lit. The Crocodile, dir. Sándor Szalkai, 1970) over whether a private individual may keep a giant reptile in a housing estate flat. The dramatic realisation of grotesque situations, however, can be a punch to the stomach. One does not feel inclined to laugh at the party officials of A határozat (The Resolution, dir. Gyula Gazdag and Judit Ember, 1972), who conspire in smoke-filled meetings to remove a too-successful collective farm chairman; nor at Küldöttválasztás (Election of Delegates, dir. István Dárday, 1972), where ageing youth organisation leaders are afraid even to pronounce the word ‘problem’, let alone face the problems themselves.
In the 1970s, one of the defining directions of the BBS [Balázs Béla Stúdió] became sociological documentary, analysing the educational, social and living conditions of the time. The film proposals were based on sociological research and explored their themes from multiple angles. This level of detail required feature-length duration and even multi-part series (e.g., Nevelésügyi sorozat [lit. Series on Education], Kísérleti iskola [Experimental School]). The working method also extended into fiction films; the documentary-inflected feature films that emerged in the mainstream were referred to in the international press as the ‘Budapest School’ (e.g., Cséplő Gyuri [Gyuri the Thresher]; Béla Tarr’s early films).”
Ádám Nagy: A peremvidék kavalkádja [lit. The Kaleidoscope of the Periphery], Filmtett.ro, 03.03.2010. http://www.filmtett.ro/cikk/1435/a-balazs-bela-studio-vazlatos-tortenete-es-iranyzatai (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[2] Film criticism internationally tends to be feature-film-centric; this tendency is even more pronounced in Hungary, where documentaries often fail to reach the threshold of public communication. The general spread of online journalism has further strengthened this trend. See Bálint Kovács: A filmkritika kritikája [lit. The Critique of Film Criticism], Film.hu, 28.04.2008. http://magyar.film.hu/filmhu/magazin/a-filmkritika-kritikaja-beszamolo-szakma.html (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[3] His diploma film was a screen adaptation of Andersen’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier. In 1993, at Hungarian Television (MTV), he returned to fairy-tale themes in a programme titled Andersen álmok (lit. Andersen Dreams).
[4] Recollection of László B. Révész. The KISZ Experimental Film Studio functioned alongside the FMS (Fiatal Művészek Stúdiója [lit. Young Artists’ Studio]) and represented one of Hungarian Television’s workshops providing opportunities for young filmmakers. The former was open to those without a formal diploma, the latter to those who had graduated.
http://dunavolgyipeter.hu/televizio_torteneti_interjuk/interjuk/b__revesz_laszlo:_otven_eve_a_palyan (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[5] “Following the dissolution of Társulás Filmstúdió [lit. Association Film Studio], and as a continuation of the tendencies that had begun to unfold there – tendencies which demanded increasing space in the workshop’s activities and were then ruthlessly suppressed – the Mozgókép Innovációs Társulás [Motion Picture Innovation Association] was founded in June 1986 under the leadership of István Dárday, in very difficult financial circumstances.”
http://www.c3.hu/collection/videomuveszet/darday.html (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[6] “Jelölöm magam (lit. Voting Myself), the video documentary (Erdély /sic/ János – Dezső Zsigmond), is in fact a drama without drama. It presents a sequence of events that recalls the characteristically ‘eighties’ atmosphere (the operation, and operational breakdowns, of the new electoral system introduced in 1985, which allowed for dual candidacy). In contrast to the public mood of fifteen years earlier and the behavioural patterns of public actors at the time, this no longer leads to catharsis. We watch a film about a public event and we see that, for reasons both known and suspected, active political engagement does not function in everyday life, and people no longer understand how to act politically. The question is: what interest do they have in learning it?”
http://www.c3.hu/collection/videomuveszet/darday.html (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[7] Ferenc Kőhalmi’s memorandum to Deputy Minister György Vajda, in: András Gervai: A tanúk (lit. The Witnesses), Saxum Publishing House, 2004;
http://gervaiandras.hu/koenyvekm/a-tanuk/43-ez-zarkozott-uegy.html (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[8] “Dear Comrade Zsigmond,
Your letter has helped us formulate our opinion and position. The film may indeed contribute to strengthening responsibility and willingness to act in relation to one’s place of residence, and to broadening the process of democratisation. The usefulness of your efforts depends not only on their correctness but also on the specific locations chosen. The Gyöngyöshalász case is not suitable for achieving the aims you have set.” (emphasis in the original, R. B.) The filmmakers agreed with the county party committee’s suggestion that the external circumstances of filming would disturb the village. As the narration in the film states: “Therefore, in complete silence, notifying only those who were to speak, we held our conversations with the participants of the events in Jászárokszállás, far from the village.”
[9] On the suggestion of dramaturge András B. Vágvölgyi, following the dramaturgical model of Judit Ember and Gyula Gazdag’s The Resolution (1972) and Gazdag’s A bankett (The Banquet, 1982).
[10] Head of the Film Directorate of the Ministry of Culture and Public Education between 1982 and 1991. One of the “labourers of compromise,” who attempted, through diplomacy, to carve out room for manoeuvre between the “hard-headed comrades’” territories of power. Cf. András Gervai: The Witnesses, Saxum, 2004.
[11] In 1988, the directing duo supplemented their material, resulting in the version entitled Ez (is) zárkózott ügy (A Withdrawn Case, Too).
[12] Gábor Gelencsér: Állambrigád (lit. State Brigade); Filmvilág, 2004/11, p. 52.
http://filmvilag.hu/cikk.php?cikk_id=1823 (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[13] László Bruszt: Lábbal szavazni (lit. Voting with One’s Feet); Filmvilág, 1987/08, pp. 5–6. http://www.filmvilag.hu/xista_frame.php?cikk_id=5207 (last accessed 30 November 2025)
The article also presents findings from research conducted at the Társadalomtudományi Intézet (Institute of Social Sciences) during the making of the two films:
“What is democracy? – among other questions, this was asked during a nationwide survey commissioned by the Institute of Social Sciences at roughly the same time as the films. The answers were surprising: a minority believed democracy meant that citizens could influence politics; another minority believed it meant that politics should not interfere in people’s lives (letting them get on with things). The majority believed it meant that people’s interests should play a role in politics. Most citizens considered their own civic role passive, and perceived politics as distant from their everyday lives.” (emphasis in original, R. B.)
[14] “One further detail relating to This Is a Withdrawn Case: 75 percent of respondents believed they would be unable to do anything if the local council made a decision contrary to their interests.”
Bruszt, ibid.
[15] A similarly revelatory work of oral history is László Vitézy’s television series A legvidámabb barakk – Biszku és a többiek (lit. The Happiest Barrack – Biszku and the Others, 1989–91).
http://1960-64.blogspot.hu/2011/01/biszku-es-tobbiek-legvidamabb-barakk-15.html
[16] In both the fiction and non-fiction categories of the competition, historical themes predominated. Among the documentaries were works that today are considered foundational to the genre’s canon, such as Sándor Sára’s Te még élsz? (Are You Still Alive?) and Gyula & János Gulyás’s Málenkij robot (lit. Little Work).
See Filmévkönyv 1991, Hungarian Film Institute, pp. 210–218.
http://mandarchiv.hu/dokumentum/4660/FILMEVKONYV_1991compressed.pdf (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[17] Tibor Balogh: Áfium (sic) a felejtés ellen (lit. An Antidote Against Forgetting); Debrecen Online, 20.10.2006.
http://www.deol.hu/main.php?c=8153
[18] The film is listed in parentheses in Zsigmond’s filmography because it largely uses footage omitted from With Blood and Rope, presenting the positions of the participants. (R. B.)
[19] The trial could only take place in 1999, when the Supreme Court – making it legally possible – ruled that the act constituted a non-prescribing crime against humanity.
See Róbert Kovács: A Dudás-per előzményei: Bűnök, amik voltak (lit. The Background to the Dudás Trial: Crimes That Were Committed); Magyar Narancs, 29.10.1999.
http://magyarnarancs.hu/belpol/a_dudas_per_elozmenyei_bunok_amik_voltak-60491 (last accessed 30 November 2025)
and Ferenc Hajba: Sortűzper, Dudás István nélkül (lit. The Mass-Shooting Trial, Without István Dudás); Népszabadság, 02.07.2002.
http://nol.hu/archivum/archiv-68854-52737
[20] Opinion of Józsefné Gábor, expressed in Sortűz után (lit. After the Volley of Shots), minute 50.
[21] Cf. e.g. László Ablonczy: Földes Gábor útja a bitóig (lit. Gábor Földes’s Road to the Gallows); Valóság, January 2015, pp. 53–66.
The article cites With Blood and Rope as a source (under the title Vérrel és verejtékkel [lit. With Blood and Sweat], dating the film to 1990).
[22] The reprisals developed slowly; their conception took shape gradually.
“On 10 June 1957 the first-instance sentence was delivered, and the second-instance final judgement on 23 December. The trial sentenced to death: the actor Gábor Földes; the teacher Árpád Tihanyi; the Reformed pastor Lajos Gulyás; the unskilled labourer László Weintráger; the cowherd Lajos Cziffrik; and the farmer Imre Zsigmond. Antal Kiss, stoker, was sentenced to life imprisonment at first instance; at second instance it was increased to the death penalty. The executions were carried out on 31 December 1957 and 15 January 1958 in Sopronkőhida.”
See Lajos Böröndi: Sortűz és megtorlás (lit. Volley and Reprisal), in: Dokumentumok 1956 – Mosonmagyaróvár (lit. Documents 1956 – Mosonmagyaróvár), Integratio, Vienna, 2006.
http://www.mosonvarmegye.eoldal.hu/cikkek/1956---mosonmagyarovar/sortuz-es-megtorlas.html
[23] The county daily mentioned 59 deaths the day after the volley.
In the trial against Gábor Földes (1957), the prosecutor spoke of 104 victims, while the Daily Mail report on the funeral cited 85.
Eyewitnesses stated the number of dead exceeded one hundred. The number of wounded certainly exceeded one hundred.
Later investigations could not determine precise figures due to lack of sources and medical documentation.
[24] The location and precise event description are clarified in After the Volley of Shots. (R. B.)
[25] István Schlett: 15 vagy 250 golyó (lit. 15 or 250 Bullets); Filmvilág, June 1990, pp. 50–51. http://filmvilag.hu/xista_frame.php?cikk_id=4365 (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[26] “I saw the officer’s face, and the soldier’s face. I believe them when they say they sleep peacefully, that their breasts have never burned under the decoration they received ‘for steadfastness.’ Their conscience ‘checks out,’ and that is precisely what is terrible. The crude calm of numbness, insensitivity, ‘composure.’”
Schlett, ibid.
[27] Schlett, ibid. (emphasis in original, R. B.)
[28] Their first feature film, Indián tél (Indian Summer, 1992), starring Károly Eperjes and Mari Törőcsik, was a fictional reworking of their 1989 documentary A kis indiánkönyv (lit. The Little Indian Book).
[29] Cast: Károly Eperjes, György Dörner, Mari Nagy, Miklós B. Székely.
[30] Cf. József Veress: Mementó 1956 utánról (lit. Memento from post-1956); Népszabadság, 17.01.1997. http://port.hu/article/97 (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[31] Gábor Kálomista, also from Gyöngyös, wished to make an art film after the commercial film Zimmer Feri (a mainstream comedy). Cf.:
“Zimmer Feri was indeed a huge flop in the end, we pushed it to the limit. Still, we embarked on another film – this was The Blood of the Rose. It did not become a box office success, yet it clearly revealed the immense resistance forming against me within the film industry.
– Yet The Blood of the Rose was not intended as a commercial film.
– It was an art film. It was directed by Dezső Zsigmond, with excellent actors such as Eszter Nagy-Kálózy, Sándor Gáspár, and Marianna Mór. A very serious film, one that attracted few viewers, yet the industry attacked me regardless. At that point I thought: Guys! If you hate me this much, then I’ll stay.”
http://mno.hu/magyar_nemzet_belfoldi_hirei/kalomista-gabor-sikeres-de-jol-szidhato-1224665 (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[32] Károly Csala: Helyzetkép a magyar filmről (lit. Situation Report on Hungarian Film); Filmkultúra Online, 1999.
http://www.filmkultura.hu/regi/1999/articles/essays/csala.hu.html (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[33] Sándor Turcsányi: Kelet-magyarországi szoljanka (lit. Eastern Hungarian Hotchpotch); Filmvilág, 1998/04, p. 55.
http://filmvilag.hu/cikk.php?cikk_id=3673 (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[34] Lóránt Stőhr: A falu bolondja (“lit. The Village Fool); Filmkultúra Online, 2002.
http://www.filmkultura.hu/regi/2002/articles/films/zsigmondd.hu.html (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[35] Stőhr, ibid.
[36] Rita Boronyák: Guminő és csigavár (lit. Rubber Doll and Snail-Fortress); Filmkultúra Online, 2004.
http://www.filmkultura.hu/regi/2005/articles/profiles/zsigmonddezso.hu.html (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[37] Dezső Zsigmond recalls:
“My great-grandfather was born in Bikfalva, near Sepsiszentgyörgy [today Sfântu Gheorghe, Romania], yet I myself did not visit the place until I was over thirty. […] He had been a Reformed pastor in the area, and so I became acquainted with the local Reformed minister. He guided me, and through him I came to know this dear, charming, outspoken, very original woman, Terézke. […] Her openness to the world was astonishing. […] She had such humour, such self-irony, one could hardly imagine it. One of the key scenes in the film that shows this best is her relationship to her dolls. […] These objects belong to her: the artificial rose that plays ‘Happy Birthday’, her dolls. The film essentially came into being from the moment when she picked up an inflatable male doll and exclaimed: ‘Here’s my man!’”
Boronyák, ibid.
[38] -kyt- (Tibor Kovácsy): Dokumentumfilmek: Van, ahogy van (lit. Documentaries: It Is As It Is); Magyar Narancs, 06.02.2005.
http://magyarnarancs.hu/kepzomuveszet/dokumentumfilmek_van_ahogy_van-52458 (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[39] See his interview with Viktória Réka Kiss: Amikor „történni kezd az élet” (lit. When “Life Begins To Happen”); Film.hu, 01.02.2007.
http://magyar.film.hu/filmhu/magazin/zsigmond-dezso-elik-az-eletuket-interju-szemle-38
[40] His method is, in a certain sense, risky, since it provides grounds for attack by those who do not think in terms of a unified concept of film. Such situations are labelled as “staged,” bringing us back into the debate that has accompanied filmmaking since its beginnings: whether the filmed image is authentic.
The scene of physical violence in Élik az életüket (Slice of Their Lives – Sub-Carpathian Soap-Opera) also raises the question of ethical boundaries in reportage documentary practice.
[41] Tibor Borzák: Zsigmond Dezső lidércet látott! (lit. Dezső Zsigmond Has Seen a Phantom Light!); Szabad Föld, 08.05.2009.
http://www.szabadfold.hu/mozaik/kultura/zsigmond_dezso_lidercet_latott
[42] See, for example, Nándor Jakab-Benke’s article:
http://www.filmtett.ro/cikk/698/zsigmond-dezso-vadlany-boszorkanykor (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[43] A seemingly minor yet telling example can be seen in the juxtaposition of actors originating from different regions, which may not be apparent to viewers in Hungary but was noticed by Jakab-Benke Nándor in Sfântu Gheorghe:
“The amateur participants naturally speak in their own regional dialects, while the professional actors (Tibor Pálffy from the theatre in Sfântu Gheorghe, Klára Tompa from the theatre in Târgu Mureș, Zsolt Trill from Hungary, etc.) use their own ‘standard’ Hungarian pronunciation. The result resembles a disintegrating puzzle from which several key pieces have gone missing, making the larger image impossible to assemble.” (see Jakab-Benke, ibid.)
The result of the experiment demonstrates the irreconcilability of rule and appearance: the transfer of documentary material into fiction is not adaptation, and without sufficient dramaturgical development, documentary reality may lose its sense of authenticity within the frame of feature filmmaking. Due to the constraints of a limited budget, certain technical shortcomings were unavoidable; critics who otherwise hold Zsigmond in high regard, including Jakab-Benke, were obliged to point these out.
[44] Nem akarják irigyelni a holtakat (lit. They Do Not Want to Envy the Dead, 1996).
[45] Linda Koncz: Az atombunker-építő legendája (lit. The Legend of the Atom-Bunker Builder); Film.hu, 18.01.2010.
http://magyar.film.hu/filmhu/magazin/zsigmond-dezso-bunkerember-interju-werk (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[47] At this point in his career, Gyula Varsányi’s earlier question becomes clearer: is it permissible to make a film on a “zero budget”?
Zsigmond responded: “But would this film have been any better had it not been made?”
One of Varsányi’s principal arguments is that even A Bizarre Romance had not been screened.
See: Gyula Varsányi: Egy kispolgári ház emlékei – Zsigmond Dezső ‘null budget’ filmjéről és a levendulaillatról (lit. Memories of a Petit-Bourgeois House – On Dezső Zsigmond’s ‘Null-Budget’ Film and the Scent of Lavender); Népszabadság, 31.10.2002.
[48] Péter Mátyás: Messze Hrabaltól – Bunkerember (lit. Far from Hrabal – The Bunkerman); Film.hu, 07.02.2010.
http://magyar.film.hu/filmhu/magazin/messze-hrabaltol.html (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[49] “In this film the sense of the grotesque and philosophical reflection appear only as guests who arrive briefly and depart just as quickly.”
Mátyás, ibid.
[50] Barnabás Németh points out:
“(…) we can only shake our heads sadly: the situation has not changed – Hungarian film is still entirely out of touch with its audience. Yet, of all this year’s domestic releases, The Bunkerman should have had the greatest advantage.”
One of the film’s minor figures, Sándor Szalacsi, became the subject of the first Hungarian Internet meme, long before the term existed. In 1989, Ferenc Bogdányi, reporter for the local TV station, visited Kocsord. He did not find the bunker-builder, but encountered his fellow villager, the rather inebriated Szalacsi. The rambling conversation was uploaded to the internet in 2002, where it became instantly popular, generating nearly thirty thousand (!) comments. Fan pages were created; songs were composed about Szalacsi. As a result, younger audiences continue to watch both the documentary on the bunker-builder and the feature film. Dezső Zsigmond was aware of this – for him, somewhat ambiguous – notoriety, but chose not to build upon it.
See: Barnabás Németh: “Árpád biztos jó munkásember” (lit. “Árpád is certainly a hard-working man”); Filmtett.ro, 09.02.2010.
http://www.filmtett.ro/cikk/1374/zsigmond-dezso-bunkerember (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[51] Balázs Bilsiczky: Párhuzamos valóságok (lit. Parallel Realities); Filmvilág, 04/2015, pp. 14–16.
http://www.filmvilag.hu/xista_frame.php?&ev=2002&szam=08&cikk_id=12125 (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[52] Kolompok nyelvén 1. (lit. In the Language of the Cowbells, Part 1).
[53] “A jószág volt az aranya a népnek – Requiem a szatmári csordákért” (lit. “The Cattle Were the People's Wealth – Requiem for the Herds of Szatmár”, 2003).
[54] To nuance the film’s lyrical structure of meaning, an inserted note might have been warranted indicating that such a burial method is not legally possible in Hungary.
[55] “Everything was mechanised, yet the whole remained part of nature. It was in this world that I realised that things could be this way.”
See Bilsiczky, note [51].
[56] See Bilsiczky, note [51].
[57] Három királyok I. (lit. Three Kings, Part 1, 2013).
[58] Gusztáv Schubert: Magyar átok (lit. Hungarian Curse); Filmvilág, 02/2016, p. 33.
[59] Klára Tóth: “Nem én válogattam, hanem a történelem.” Beszélgetés Sára Sándorral (lit. “It Was Not I Who Chose, but History.” A Conversation with Sándor Sára); Filmvilág, 06/2009, pp. 9–12.
http://www.filmvilag.hu/xista_frame.php?cikk_id=9782 (last accessed 30 November 2025)
[60] The remarks concerning Tibor Kocsis illuminate the principles of the documentary genre’s senior master:
“First of all, Tibor Kocsis’s Új Eldorádó (New Eldorado). You see, in that case too, the point is that he spent years with the subject. He knew everything and everyone. This is how – and only how – documentary film should be made.”