Abstract
This chapter examines the de-colonised national spaces of Hungary and the circular aesthetics that have been inherited by the country’s post-socialist cinema. While establishing the patterns of horizontal enclosure, the chapter gives special focus to Béla Tarr’s Satantango (Sátántangó, 1994), which is analysed within the films of the so-called Black Series.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
For muteness in contemporary Hungarian cinema, see, for instance, Ferenc Török’s Senki szigete/No Man’s Island (2014), György Pálfi’s Hukkle (2002), Kornél Mundruczó’s Delta (2008) or Áron Mátyássy’s Utolsó idők/ Lost Times (2009).
- 2.
The absence of language is prevalent in, for instance, Ádám Császi’s Viharsarok/Land of Storms (2014) and Szabolcs Hajdu’s Tamara (2003) and Délibáb/Mirage (2014).
- 3.
For examples of vertical aesthetics in contemporary Hungarian cinema, see Ágnes Kocsis’s Friss levegő/Fresh Air, 2007 and Pál Adrienn/Adrienn Pal (2011), Kornél Mundruczó’s Johanna (2005) or György Pálfi’s Szabadesés/Free Fall (2014).
- 4.
The parabolic form will be investigated from a thematic point of view; that is, while the attributes (allegoric, symbolic, absurd and documentarist) can vary, the main aim of the parable remains the same: ‘to say the unsayable’ (Gelencsér 2002, 137).
- 5.
For further historic parables, see Gyula Maár’s Press (Prés, 1971); András Lányi’s The Myth-makers (Segesvár, 1974); András Kovács’s Fallow Land (A magyar Ugaron, 1972), Pál Zolnay’s The Face (Arc, 1970) and Ferenc Kósa’s Judgement (Ítélet, 1970).
- 6.
For further present-day parables, see Ferenc Kardos’ A Crazy Night (Egy őrült éjszaka, 1970), István Gaál’s Falcons (Magasiskola, 1970) and Sándor Sára’s The Thrown Up Stone (Fel-feldobott kő, 1968).
- 7.
The Black Series is, of course, not the only film trend peculiar to the 1990s. The decade also introduced a new generation of film-makers who, whether in the form of retrospective or personal, contemporary narratives, reacted upon the politico-social changes. Films such as Ferenc Grunwalsky’s Little but Tough/Kicsi, de erős, 1989; Pál Erdőss’s A Light-Sensitive Story/Fényérzékeny történet, 1993 and Countdown/Visszaszámlálás, 1986); János Rózsa’s Brats/Félálom, 1990) or Ferenc Kardos’s Truants/Iskolakerülők, 1989)—to mention just a few—all illustrate the post-1989 socio-psychological milieu by laying emphasis on the drawbacks of the change.
It is also the 1990s when a second wave of retrospective films was launched that continued the process of explicit remembrance of socialism and openly evoked 1956 (János Zsombolyai’s On the Death Raw/A halálraítélt, 1989) or the restrictive terror of the Rákosi era (Péter Bacsó’s Oh, Bloody Life!/Te rongyos élet, 1982; Zsolt Kézdi-Kovács’s Cry and Cry Again/Kiáltás és kiáltás, 1988) or both.
- 8.
As Tarr puts it, ‘the maddening characteristic of the Alföld is that you cannot decide about the endless field lying in front of you whether there is a real perspective or just the perspective of hopelessness. You never know whether it has anything behind—if it has another side, for instance—or not. Besides, there is the constant symmetry of the landscape and time (…)’. In the same interview, his co-director Hranitzky explains that, while shooting Satantango , it was very difficult to get rid of the Jancsóian solutions of space for everything reminded them of the elder master (Tarr and Hranitzky, quoted in Kovács 1994, 13).
- 9.
- 10.
Tarr himself too argues for a global understanding of his cinema. In an interview with Ballard (2004), he states that ‘we make Hungarian films, but I think the situation is a little bit the same everywhere’. In a conversation with Schlosser, he admits that ‘I have the hope that if you watch [Werckmeister Harmonies], you understand something about our life, about what is happening in Middle Europe, how we are living there, in a kind of edge of the world. That’s all’ (Schlosser, quoted in McLaren 2015, 181).
- 11.
The name pálinka covers Hungary’s national sprit.
- 12.
For films with mosaic-like narratives, see Janisch’s After the Day Before (Másnap, 2004) and Long Twilight (Hosszú alkony, 1997).
References
Andorka, R. (1999). Dissatisfaction and alienation. In R. Andorka, T. Kolosi, R. Rose, & V. Gy (Eds.), A society transformed. Hungary in time-space perspective (pp. 147–155). Budapest: Central European University Press.
Balassa, P. (2009). A csapda koreográfiája [The coreography of the trap: Krasznahorkai’s Satantango]. Átkelés II. (Lélekkertészet). Budapest: Balassi Kiadó.
Ballard, P. (2004). In search of truth. Béla Tarr interviewed. Kino-eye: New Perspectives on European Film, 4(2) [Online]. Available from http://www.kinoeye.org/04/02/ballard02.php. Accessed 11 Feb 2017.
Bikácsy, G. (2004). A reménytelenség vigasza. Tarr Béla. [The comfort of hopelessness. Béla Tarr]. In Z. Vince (Ed.), Magyar filmrendezőportrék (pp. 5–33). Budapest: Osiris.
Bordwell, D. (2007). The sarcastic laments of Béla Tarr. http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2007/09/19/the-sarcastic-laments-of-bela-tarr/. Accessed 11 May 2016.
Branigan, E. (2006). Projecting a camera. Language-games in film theory. London/New York: Routledge.
De Luca, T. (2011). Gus Van Sant’s Gerry and visionary realism. Cinephile, 7(2), 43–51.
De Luca, T. (2012). Realism of the senses: A tendency in contemporary world cinema. In L. Nagib, C. Perriam, & R. Dudrah (Eds.), Theorizing world cinema (pp. 183–207). London/New York: I.B. Tauris.
Dudková, J. (2013). An image of recurrent time. Notes on cinematic image and the gaze in Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó. Human Affairs, 23, 21–31.
Elekes, Z. (2014). Hungary’s neglected “alcohol problem”: Alcohol drinking in a heavy consumer country. Substance Use & Misuse, 49(12), 1611–1618.
Fergus, D., & Le Cain, M. (2001). Waiting for the prince. An Interview with Béla Tarr. Senses of Cinema [Online], 12. http://sensesofcinema.com/2001/feature-articles/tarr-2/. Accessed 17 Apr 2017.
Forgách, A. (1997). Black and blacker. Metropolis, 3, 90–160.
Foucault, M. (1968). Of other spaces: Utopias and heterotopias. In N. Leach (Ed.). (1997), Rethinking architecture. A reader in cultural theory (pp. 329–358). London/New York: Routledge.
Gelencsér, G. (2002). A Titanic zenekara. Stílusok és irányzatok a hetvenes évek magyar filmművészetében [Film style and tendencies in the 1970s’ Hungarian cinema]. Budapest: Osiris.
Györffy, M. (2001). A tizedik évtized. A Magyar játékfilm a kilencvenes években és más tanulmányok [Hungarian film in the 1990s]. Budapest: Palatinus Kiadó.
Hirsch, T. (2015). Felmenni, visszajönni. Mai magyar falu filmek [Contemporary Hungarian village-films]. Filmvilág, 5, 40–44.
Iordanova, D. (2003). Cinema of ‘the other Europe’. The industry and artistry of East Central European film. London: Wallflower Press.
Király, H. (2015). The beautiful face of Melancholia in Béla Tarr’s film. In E.-M. Kallen (Ed.), Tarr-60. Studies in honour of a distinguished cineast (pp. 159–177). Budapest: Underground Kiadó.
Kovács, A. B. (1994). A falfelület is történet. Beszélgetés Tarr Bélával és Hranitzky Ágnessel [Interview with Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky]. Filmvilág, 6, 10–13.
Kovács, A. B. (2002). A film szerint a világ [Film and world]. Budapest: Palatinus.
Kovács, A. B. (2013). The cinema of Béla Tarr. The circle closes. London/New York: Wallflower Press.
McLaren, R. (2015). A spectacle of breaking dreams. In E.-M. Kallen (Ed.), Tarr-60. Studies in honour of a distinguished cineast (pp. 177–191). Budapest: Underground.
Nagy, R. S. (2010). Körkörös romok. A Magyar film és rendszerváltás. Metropolis, 4, 48–59.
Powell, A. (2015). The red and the white (1967): The political and metaphysical sequence shot. Senses of Cinema [Online], 76. http://sensesofcinema.com/2015/cteq/the-red-and-the-white-1967-the-political-and-metaphysical-sequence-shot/#fnref-24985-5. Accessed 17 Apr 2016.
Rancière, J. (2016). Béla Tarr: The poetics and the politics of fiction. In T. De Luca & J. N. Barradas (Eds.), Slow cinema (pp. 245–261). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Romney, J. (2001, March 23). Out of the shadows. Interview with Bela Tarr. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/mar/24/books.guardianreview. Accessed 11 May 2016.
Romney, J. (2003). Outside the whale. Sight and Sound, 13(4), 32–33.
Rosenbaum, J. (1995). Placing movies: The practice of film criticism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Skrodzka, A. (2012). Magic realist cinema in East Central Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Steavenson, W. (2004). Stories I stole. New York: Grove Press.
Sweeney, E. R. (2012). Interview: Béla Tarr, the complete works. Film Comment [Online]. http://www.filmcomment.com/blog/interview-bela-tarr-the-complete-works/. Accessed 11 May 2016.
Tomasz, G. (2001). A pesti kocsmák világa [Pub-life in Budapest]. Új Holnap, 46(3), 64–95.
Valkola, J. (2015). Waiting for the eternal return. In E.-M. Kallen (Ed.), Tarr-60. Studies in honour of a distinguished cineast (pp. 97–133). Budapest: Underground.
Valuch, T. (2004). Changes in the structure and lifestyle of the Hungarian society in the second half of the XXth century. In G. Gyáni, K. Gy, & T. Valuch (Eds.), Social history of Hungary from the reform era to the end of the twentieth century (pp. 511–621). New York: Columbia University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Batori, A. (2018). Horizontal Enclosure in the Post-socialist Cinema of Hungary. In: Space in Romanian and Hungarian Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75951-7_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75951-7_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75950-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75951-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)