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Reviews
A temetetlen halott (2004)
only the subject is interesting the film itself is not
I think this movie is pretty useless. It does not give you any perspective on the revolution of 1956. The viewer does not get any idea on the background of the revolution. The film pretty much concentrates solely on the life of Imre Nagy, the prime minister of Hungary during the revolution. You cannot learn too much about him having watched the movie either, since it only shows brief, emotional clips about his life before 56. We do not learn how this man coped with the terrors of Stalin while he was living in Russia, and that he was an agent of Cheka the predecessor of KGB. The film also does not say anything about how many times Nagy withdrew his political opinion and corrected his former point of view under pressure from his comrades and the Party. All in all, until 56 Nagy was pretty much like any of his comrades from the communist party's elite, but strangely, in 56, even after the revolution had been crushed, he was not prepared to make another compromise, or even plead guilty which may have saved his life. This contrast in his personality that makes him interesting, but the film does not show any of these conflicts within Nagy's personality. Overall this movie does not provide too much information about the 1956 revolution, neither does it show Nagy's true personality, and how his view on communism evolved over his life, and worst of all it is quite boring as well.
Sacra Corona (2001)
certainly worth watching for people interested in this era
A lot of people have bad feelings about this film, because it was partially financed by the Hungarian government reigning between 1998 and 2002. As a result lot of critics argued that the money could have been spent on supporting more than one movies with lower budgets instead of just one. Many times the critiques had strong political flavours in them. The above mentioned things are important because I do not think that the rating given to the film by IMDb voters (who are most likely Hungarians) reflects the true quality of the film. It shows how important a strong ruler was in the middle ages and how he must have been approved by the nobility as well. The actual history told by the film proves that even without democracy how necessary it was for even a monarch to gain some kind of legitimacy, and how difficult it was somitimes to gain this legitimacy even amongst the narrow ruling class. It is certainly not amongst the best films I have ever seen, but it gives a pretty good view of the political intrigues of the era, and how difficult it was for Hungarians to adopt Christianity even though they did not have any viable alternatives. I would recommend it mostly for Hungarians and/or those interested in Hungarian or at least Central-Eastern European history from the Middle Ages.