Category Archives: Hungary

Movie: Gloomy Sunday — Ein Lied von Liebe und Tod (1999)

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The setting is Budapest, Hungary in the late 1930s when the shadow of the Nazis is creeping in. László is a Jew who manages an up-scale restaurant. He is involved with the beautiful waitress Ilona. They hire András as the restaurant’s pianist, but sparks fly between András and Ilona the moment they meet. However, Ilona is not able to separate from László. Also, since a friendship develops between László and András, the three fall into a weird love triangle. In addition, Ilona rejects the affections of a young German man named Hans, so he tries to commit suicide. László is the one to save him.

András composes a song called “Gloomy Sunday” for Ilona, and gives Ilona the song as her birthday present. With the help of László, this song is released as a record and becomes a big hit, but people one after another commit suicide while listening to this song. Before long, Hans comes back to Budapest as an executive officer of the Nazis, and the fates of Ilona, László, and András turn dark.

This movie is not just sentimental fiction, and is actually partly based on facts. The song “Gloomy Sunday” that is played in the movie was composed by the Hungarian composer Rezső Seress in 1930s while he was working as a pianist in the restaurant owned by László Jávor, who added the song lyrics. In addition, there is the urban legend that people one after another committed suicide while listening to this song. At one point, the song was banned from British and American broadcasting stations. Rezső Seress, like András in this movie, also committed suicide.

I think it is only an urban legend that people commit suicide when they listen to this song, but this song may reflect the darkness that Hungarians felt for 30 years through the Great Depression, losing in World War I, and being under Nazi control.

Hungary formed the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy with Austria in the late 19th century, and jumped to the top in the world economically as well as culturally; but the empire collapsed in World War I and Hungary was cut off from Austria, so Hungary lost half of its territory and had to receive humiliating economic sanctions. Due to the Trianon Treaty in 1920, Hungary lost 72% of the area of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy and 64% of its population; around half of all Hungarians were left behind outside of the country of Hungary. I wonder if there is a nation that has faced more humiliation. On the other hand, the Czech Republic and Poland in the north—Hungary’s rivals over territory since ancient times—won their independence as republics, and were enjoying prosperity. Due to this bitterness, Hungary allied with Germany and became a member of the Axis. Backed by Germany, Hungary was able to recover land in the Slovak-Hungarian War in 1939 and avoid a fate like Poland and the Czech Republic—being conquered by Germany and disappearing from the map. However, most Hungarian people gradually came to want to withdraw from the Axis, but by that time, it was already too late and Hungary was unable to do so.

In the end, the Axis lost in World War II, but at one time Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Poland of Eastern Europe, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, and the northern part of France were occupied, and all except Spain and Great Britain was under of the control of the Axis. Although Spain didn’t participate in the war, they were a “close friend” of Germany’s; almost all of Europe, except for Great Britain and neutral Soviet Union, fell into Hitler’s hand at that time.

I thought this movie was going to just be a soap opera. (The term “soap opera” refers to cheap-looking daytime melodramas, ever since a detergent company sponsored a sappy romantic melodrama series that broadcasted in the middle of the day in order to target the housewife market.) However, this movie is surprisingly popular among movie critics who pride themselves in (supposedly) intelligent critiques. I wondered why this was, and I realized after I watched this movie that it was because it is like a Takaratzuka (a Japanese all-female musical troupe) show. When one buys a ticket for a Takaratzuka show, one does not buy with the expectation that it will be an intellectual criticism, or reproduction of historical facts, or strange art for art’s sake. One is happy to enjoy two hours being enchanted by the beauty. This movie does just that.

However, this movie is not just sweet, but also bitter and cleverly complicated. Hans is the character in this movie that is supposed to be most hated because he sends László, who saved Hans’s life, to a Nazi concentration camp without hesitation, despite Ilona’s desperate plea. He is in a position to be able to easily save Jews. In fact, he let countless Jews escape from the country for a large amount of money or jewels. Whenever he helped Jews, he always told them, “If something happens to me, please testify that I helped you.” In other words, this man is like Schindler in Schindler’s List. Even though Schindler is depicted as the hero in Spielberg’s movie, the same character can be quite ugly when presented from a different angle. Although Hans was part of the Nazi’s SS, he lives on after the war as a hero who helped Jews, and comes back as a very successful businessman to tour Budapest with his wife.

Ilona is loved by three men, and skillfully manipulates the three of them. Well, she never thought she was manipulating the men because she thought it was just love. After András commits suicide, his large amount of royalties is inherited by Ilona. Also, in order to protect his restaurant, László hands over the rights to his restaurant to Ilona right before being sent to a concentration camp, and Ilona makes his legendary restaurant her own. In addition to being handsome and a talented pianist, András also has a good understanding of finance and has practical skills needed to negotiate financial matters. The movie clearly depicts these financial negotiations. Therefore, this movie is not just a bittersweet melodrama.

The most interesting part of the movie is Ilona’s way of raising her son. After András and László die, it is depicted that she is pregnant. Viewers hope that it is András’s child, but it seems like he died a little too early. Since we later see Ilona’s son helping his mother manage the restaurant, we are given the impression that it is László’s child. However, it is most likely Hans’s child. If this is the case, the way Ilona raised the child is wonderful. At the very end, the audience witnesses Ilona at last carrying out the revenge of the deceased László on Hans, who had betrayed László, but this is quite terrible revenge if the father of Ilona’s child is Hans.

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Movie: The Last Days (1998)

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The Last Days is one of the documentaries of the testimonies of Holocaust survivors that was made with the financial support of a Shoah foundation; it features the testimonies of five Hungarian Jews who returned from the Holocaust alive. Tom Lantos, one of the five witnesses, later was elected as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

This Shoah foundation was founded by Steven Spielberg—who won an Academy Award for Schindler’s List—with the objective to record the testimonies of what happened to Holocaust survivors and pass on these records to the next generation. “Shoah” is the Hebrew word for “Holocaust.” Steven Spielberg’s ancestors seem to have lived in Austria around the 17th century, but he considers his family to be Ukrainian Jews. His whole family had immigrated to America early on, untouched by the Holocaust. Also, since his family lived in rural areas in Ohio and Arizona, and not in New York City where there is a large Jewish population, it seems like he didn’t have much of a connection to the Jewish community in America. However, because Schindler’s List was a success, the Holocaust has become one of his life’s works. In addition to being interested in recording the persecution of Jews, he also seems to be deeply interested in depicting the hardships of gay people as well as Africans brought to America as slaves.

Because Holocaust survivors have already become very old, their testimonies should be retained in some form or another. Spielberg’s mission is to show the truth about the Holocaust to the many people who might say, “I didn’t hear about the Holocaust during the war,” or, “The Holocaust isn’t a historical fact.” When the movie shows the photographs of Jews who had wasted away to skin and bones in the concentration camps, and photos of the remains of the very large concentration camps, you feel a realness, different than you would in a dramatized movie. For a facility that large, there must’ve been someone who designed it, people who built it, someone who managed it, and moreover there must have been a budget for it, since no project can happen without a budget.

This documentary depicts the reality of the Holocaust from the point of view of five people, but there is no explanation of why such a large-scale manhunt occurred in Europe during World War II. This is a mystery that they don’t understand either. These five people—who were surrounded by non-Jewish neighbors and friends, and brought up with the love of socially successful parents—believed that the increasingly harsh anti-Semitism legal regulations were temporary and due to the urgency of wartime, and that they could return to their regular happy life when the war ended. The Czech movie Protektor and the Polish movie In Darkness depict Jewish women who, even though others were risking their lives to shelter them, voluntarily enter Nazi concentration camps, angrily declaring something like, “I’m through with this foul and inconvenient life!!” It seems that not all, but many Jews in Europe were rich, and a woman raised in such a family is used to getting everything she wants. Perhaps these women couldn’t predict what a concentration camp would be like, and thought that it would be a safe place where they would be surrounded by fellow Jews, be able to breathe fresh air, and be more comfortable. Most Hungarian Jews thought that concentration camps were where people were forced to work, and accepted being sent to a labor camp because all their fellow Hungarians were struggling in this wartime. However, nobody would have imagined that they would be put on a train used for transporting cattle for days without bathrooms and sent to Auschwitz, and that the government of their own home country that they loved would decree it.

Compared to Hungary, Nazi-occupied Poland, Czech Republic, and France had Jews sent to concentration camps such as Auschwitz relatively early on in World War II; the Jew hunting started late in Hungary, not until 1944 when Germany’s defeat became certain. Hungary was Germany’s ally, so it was a relatively safe place for Jews. As in Divided We Fall, there were people whose business was helping Jews from the Czech Republic and Poland who had money to escape to Hungary. Even if a Jew who barely escaped alive explains what happened at a Nazi concentration camp in Poland, a Hungarian Jew may have been dubious that the German government could ever do that. They were different from Jews from Poland, the Czech Republic, or the Soviet Union, and believed they were protected by the Hungarian government.

However, anti-Semitic feelings among Hungarians seemed to gradually strengthen from 1920 through the 30s. Although Hungarian Jews made up only 5% of the entire population, most of them were in the wealthiest class. In 1921, 88% of the members of the Budapest Stock Exchange and 91% of foreign exchange brokers were Jews. It is said that Jews owned between 50 and 90% of Hungarian industry. Young Jews made up 25% of the Hungarian university students, while 43% of the students at the elite Budapest University of Technology were young Jews. It is said that in Hungary, 60% of the doctors, 51% of the lawyers, 39% of the private industry engineers and chemists, and 29% of the magazine editors were Jewish. I wonder if the Hungarian government worked with the Nazis as an outlet for the dissatisfied and struggling lower class by targeting their feelings of hatred toward the elite, affluent minority Jews.

Tom Lantos, who later became a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, escaped immediately from the concentration camp and took refuge in the hideout of Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg; from there, he performed underground anti-Nazi activities. Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat, and he used his privileges as a diplomat to shelter escaped Jews in his office. According to some, 100,000 Jews were rescued by his efforts. However, after the retreat of Germany, Wallenberg went missing after visiting an office of the occupying Soviet Army to talk about the postwar security of Jews. It is said that he rescued Jews no matter the danger during the war, and he received the award “Righteous Among the Nations” from the Israeli government’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. Some say that Wallenberg was regarded as a U.S. spy and was immediately arrested when he went to talk to the Soviet Army, and he died soon after at a Bolshevik concentration camp. Since Gorbachev took over power, such records are gradually becoming public.

For a man helping Jews in German-occupied Poland, not only he, but his whole family and at times neighbors all faced the death penalty, yet many Poles chose to help Jews regardless of the danger. 6,454 Polish people have won the “Righteous Among the Nations” award. Chiune Sugihara, a diplomat from Japan, is the sole winner of this prize from Japan.

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Movie: Sunshine — Sonnenschein (1999)

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Sunshine is a long historical drama that depicts Hungarian history from the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th century until the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, by following five generations of a Jewish family.

The attractiveness of this movie is that it depicts Hungarian history in an understandable way. The man of the first generation of the family is the owner of a pub in a rural village during the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy. After he dies young, his eldest son (second generation) goes to Budapest for work in a factory, and greatly succeeds as the owner of a distillery that makes medicinal alcohol using a family recipe. His son (third generation) becomes a jurist, changes his Jewish surname to a surname that sounds Hungarian, and becomes a loyal judge for the emperor. However, when the Hungarian Soviet Republic is formed after Hungary is defeated in World War I, the man of the third generation lives under house arrest as a war criminal and he dies in despair.

The Hungarian Soviet Republic was overthrown by an intervention by Romania, and the imperial rule was restored; but due to both World War I and the Party of Communists in Hungary being overthrown by Romania, Hungary lost most of its territory, and bitterness turned them toward the Nazi regime. In order to recover lost territory, Hungary joined the Axis powers during World War II; however, by 1944, Hungary wanted to withdraw from the Axis, but this was prevented by the Nazi Germany army. The man of the fourth generation becomes a national champion in fencing and a gold medalist at the Berlin Olympics. In order to qualify to participate in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, he converts to Catholicism. However, in the end, he is sent to a concentration camp and is murdered.

The man of the fifth generation, having barely escaped alive from the concentration camp, participates in the secret police of the Hungarian People’s Republic that is established with the support of the Soviet Union, and starts arresting those that supported the Nazis. However, his job gradually changes to arresting patriots of anti-Stalin groups. With the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, he is arrested and imprisoned for giving a public speech in support of the army that opposed the Soviet Union. When he is released and returns home, he is the only survivor of his family. He changes his surname back to his original Jewish surname, and swears to live as a Jew.

Another interesting thing about this movie is the reason why these Hungarian Jews stayed in Hungary without escaping, even though they noticed the anti-Semitism of the Nazis steadily descending on them. Anti-Semitism started with legal reform that partially oppressed the privileges of prosperous and high-class Jews, but the laws did not apply to the families of soldiers that fought for the emperor in World War I. Also, those who contributed to the promotion of national prestige, such as an Olympic medalist, were exceptions. In other words, these anti-Semitic laws did not initially apply to this family. In such a situation, there was no reason one had to throw away all of their assets and run away to a foreign country where they didn’t speak the language. However, in the end, all the Jews were sent to concentration camps, although this movie doesn’t explain why.

Although this movie had a lot of work put into it and it depicts a majestic theme, I feel like this movie will not be regarded as a masterpiece or even a great movie. I want to discuss why I believe this movie was not a masterpiece.

The first reason is the way the third, fourth, and fifth generation protagonists (all three of them were played by the British actor Ralph Fiennes) are depicted. These three aim for power and have a strong desire to move up, and they go through great efforts—changing their surname and religion—in order to get it. However, these men don’t hold much love for women. When aggressively approached by women, the men say, “No, I can’t,” but then eventually give in to their lust and have relations; they later coldly blame the women for seducing them, saying, “Because of you, my life was destroyed.” The relationships that develop with these women—the woman who was brought up as his little sister (third generation), the wife of his older brother (fourth generation), and the wife of his cold-blooded Stalinist boss (fifth generation)—all carry the dangerous scent of immorality. In real life, women like men who are talented yet don’t cling to power, and who are able to devote themselves to a woman deeply and unwaveringly. Because the protagonists in this movie are the complete opposite of this, dabbling in immoral behavior and only interested in sexual relations—a very unappealing character to most women—it is no wonder that a woman watching this movie is rubbed the wrong way. It is disastrous if a movie loses support from women since half of the audience for a movie is women.

The unsympathetic portrayal of these characters is quite dangerous for a movie that depicts the heavy theme of the Holocaust. In the worst case, it may raise the very dangerous argument of, “I see, let’s accept the fact that the Holocaust really happened. But aren’t Jews also responsible for what happened?” Of course nobody can be a perfect saint without any flaws. However, I think some caution is required when depicting such a heavy theme.

István Szabó, the writer and director of this movie, also directed Mephisto—which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film—and he represents Hungary as a filmmaker. In 2006, it was broadcasted that he wrote information about his fellow directors and actors as a spy after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He at first denied this; in the end, though, he admitted that it was true, but it is said that many people came to his support. After the Hungarian Revolution, people were under extreme political oppression, and it certainly wasn’t easy to survive in Hungary, which had become a police state. Those were cruel times.

Another problem in this movie is that since it is a long historical drama that follows this family over five generations in 3 hours, the depiction of each individual is superficial, and I get the feeling of events one after another being patched together. However, the models that the characters are based off of are very interesting.

Hungary was very strong in fencing, and there are in fact Jews among the gold medalists. Attila Petschauer was on the fencing team that won gold in the team competition in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics and the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. Endre Kabos was also on the winning fencing team in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, as well as got a gold medal in both the individual and team competitions in fencing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. These two also were sent to Nazi concentration camps and died. The man of the fourth generation in this movie seems to be based on both Endre Kabos, having won the individual competition at the Berlin Olympics, and Attila Petschauer, with the very cruel method depicted of being executed at the concentration camp by a fellow Hungarian.

Also, the boss of the man of the fifth generation seems to be modeled off of a real man named László Rajk. As a Jewish communist, he miraculously returned alive from Auschwitz and made every possible effort to revive his home country Hungary, but was hated by Stalin followers and was executed in 1949. Afterwards, his honor was momentarily restored during the Hungarian Revolution, but Hungary shifted into a dark period as a police state after the Revolution was quickly suppressed.

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Movie: The Way I Spent the End of the World – Cum mi-am petrecut sfârşitul lumii (2006)

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This movie is a sketch of the life of 17-year-old Eva living in Romania’s capital Bucharest in 1989. In 1989, the General Secretary of the Communist Party in Romania, Nicolae Ceauşescu, was executed and this was the year the communist dictatorship fell. In this movie, Eva seems to be rebellious, expressionless, unsociable, irresponsible, and random (however, she looks pretty and shows a little smile when she talks with her boyfriend); even though she is going out with Alexandru, the son of an important man in the socialist administration, she shows interest in Andrei, whose parents are missing on the charge of the assassination attempt of Nicolae Ceauşescu, and the two plan to cross the Danube River to escape to Yugoslavia. But partway through, Eva says “I quit,” stops crossing of the river, and returns to Bucharest alone; her parents are angry and they ask Eva to keep a good relationship with Alexandru for the sake of the safety of their family. Eva is captivated with a cheap condominium (or it may be a high-end condo by Romanian standards) that Alexandru recently bought. In the end, an intimate relationship between the two somehow develops, and Eva returns home and declares triumphantly, “We are engaged!!” but immediately after, a bloody revolution erupts; the adults, who seemed until then to be gloomy and obedient to authority, suddenly and joyfully begin destructive activity. This movie ends after briefly depicting Alexandru’s family slipping from the upper class after the bloody revolution, Andrei safely arriving in Italy via Yugoslavia, and Eva triumphantly pursuing a career as a crew member on an international passenger ship.

Eva is expressionless and arrogant from the start to finish and her inner state isn’t depicted at all. She goes back and forth between Alexandru—who symbolizes in the movie the center of political power—and Andrei—who symbolizes anti-establishment. Despite their political differences, she is attracted to both of them with the fickle feelings of a teenager. Romania, an underdeveloped satellite country of the Soviet Union, is in a desolate state of affairs and even the capital Bucharest is in bad shape; we don’t know what the parents do, but they always look gloomy, tired, and uninterested in their children. I don’t think they are poor, but it seems that the home is also in a dismal state and their meals are just soup and bread. There is no discussion of politics because the adults are afraid to get involved with politics. This depiction of desolate everyday life aptly shows the true nature of the stagnation that resulted from the socialist dictatorship in Romania and no further words of explanation are needed.

The Romanian film world first showed signs of new activity in the late 1980s and it started getting attention from film festivals, primarily the Cannes Film Festival, in the 2000s. These movies focused on the themes of the transition from a socialist country to one with a free economy or criticisms of the Ceauşescu regime, and many seemed to have an unfinished, minimalistic, documentary feel. There is a divide on whether to call this “fresh” or “amateurism,” but after watching movies from Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary that proudly demonstrate sophisticated techniques, I have a feeling that Romanian movies have a long way to go. Perhaps because Western European countries want to support Romania, Romanian movies briefly gained praise at Cannes, and Dorotheea Petre who played Eva in this movie even won the Best Actress Award at Cannes. This movie’s story is unrefined; since winter and summer are repeated many times, it feels like many years pass in the story, but it is only one year. This movie doesn’t seem to care about these inaccuracies. In addition, Dorotheea Petre who played Eva looks like she is in her 30s and doesn’t at all resemble the actress who played her mother, who is dressed to look younger; the two look as if they are sisters or friends. Both actresses certainly are quite beautiful, but that is not enough. There is a feeling somehow that this movie was made without attention to details, in contrast to the many directors in the world that really pay attention to detail. I wonder where Romanian movies will go from here.

1989 was the year that the Tiananmen Square Massacre happened and the grip of communism was strengthened in China, but it was also the year that the communist dictatorship in Eastern Europe was ended relatively peacefully. John Paul II from Poland was inaugurated as Pope in 1978 and, even though nobody thought that this was a step towards ending the Cold War, I think Pope John Paul II greatly contributed to the ending of the Cold War. Poles felt that there was something to believe in, a kind of spiritual hope. This led to the rise of charismatic yet pragmatic, labor-union chairman Lech Wełęsa. While he was trying to change the social and political direction of Poland with the word “Solidarity,” most people in the world watching Eastern Europe thought, “Oh no, something like the Hungarian Revolution or the Prague Spring might be repeated in Poland…” However, Wełęsa’s approach was different. He who would bend but not break to pressure carefully watched Moscow’s reaction in order to advance or retreat appropriately, advocated for nonviolence, and patiently and peacefully pushed for the democratization of Poland.

Hungary was similarly a “mature country.” This is because Hungary prided itself in being an advanced country like Austria. Mikhail Gorbachev’s administration of the Soviet Union began “perestroika” in 1985, which removed what was called the “Brezhnev Doctrine” that regulated the Eastern Bloc of the communist party countries; Hungary, taking advantage of this deregulation, opened the national border between Hungary and Austria in May of 1989. A non-communist regime was elected in Poland in June and a non-communist regime was established in Hungary in October.

Now that citizens from East Germany could cross the Hungary-Austria national border and flee to West Germany by way of Austria, the Berlin Wall had lost its purpose for existing. The Berlin Wall was destroyed on November 10. This encouraged many citizens in Czechoslovakia and Romania to demand democratization. On November 17, a bloodless revolution called the Velvet Revolution began in Czechoslovakia. However, a bloody revolution in Romania resulted in the execution of the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu.

Nicolae Ceauşescu was the dictator of Romania for 22 years, from 1967 to 1989. At the beginning, he opposed the suppression of the Prague Spring by the Soviet Union and refused to send armed forces; declared a pro-Western Bloc attitude along with Yugoslavia; and became a member of IMF and GATT and conformed to Western Bloc economics. Romania was the only satellite country of the Soviet Union that established diplomatic relations with Israel, and it participated in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics when all other Eastern Bloc countries boycotted it. Nicolae Ceauşescu gained a very favorable impression with the Western Bloc countries, and support from citizens was also high. Unfortunately, however, he seemed to have held a position of power for too long. He gradually began to turn Romania’s government structure in a direction that resembled the Workers’ Party of Korea in North Korea or the Chinese Communist Party.

The failure of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s economic policy was what decisively made him unpopular. Because Romania was popular with the Western Bloc countries, it was able to easily obtain funds from the Western Bloc, but this was a double-edged sword. Romania struggled with paying off this large sum of money that was loaned to them, causing the national economy to suffer and most Romanians to live in great poverty. Due to the food rationing system that was established in the country and the unreasonable exports that were given priority, Romanian citizens were without daily food or fuel for winter heating, and power outages became frequent. Such things are depicted in this movie.

In the “Arab Spring” of 2012, Twitter functioned as real-time communication and accelerated a revolution, while television played a big part in the “Revolutions of 1989” in Eastern Europe. Through television, Romanian citizens were able to know what happened in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. We can see this happening in Romania extensively in this movie.

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