History as an Archetype of Hungarian Cinema: Year 1956 From the Contemporary Perspective – The Revolution in Recent Films

Grzegorz Bubak

Abstract

The author analyses recent Hungarian films about the 1956 revolution. The need to return to the past was already present in films from the communist era, for example in films by Istvan Szabó, miklós Jancsó, Zoltan Fabri or marta meszaros. This suggested that history would remain an important element of the Hungarian cinematography. However the political changes of the late 1980s and 90s did not cause an increase in a number of historical films being made, even though they were no longer censored. The new reality was simply far more interesting than the past. It was possible that that the Hungarian october revolution would be long forgotten (which is what Kadar would have wanted) had it not been for the 50^th anniversary of the revolution. Then as part of the celebrations, several films about the events were screened. They showed the revolution from various perspectives and represented a variety of styles. Films of note included Marta Meszaros’ The Unburied Man (A temetetlen halott, 2004), Andor Szilagyi’s Mansfeld (2006), Krisztina Goda’s Freedom and Love (Szabadsag szerelem, 2006), and György Szomjas’ The Sun Street Boys (A Nap utcaißuk, 2007).