Acting
Szomszédok was a Hungarian television series, occasionally called the Hungarian Dallas, that ran from 1987–1999 and produced 331 episodes, airing its grand finale on December 31, 1999. The series was a soap opera, dealing with the lives of ordinary people, living and working in or around an average lakótelep. Its characters were explored, over time, in equal depth: ranging from elderly pensioners, busy middle aged professionals, up-and-coming young people, and children growing into their teens. Many consider Szomszédok to be the definitive Hungarian television series, being a period piece of sorts that covers the last few years of the communist era, the rendszerváltozás, and nearly a decade of the new market economy Hungary thereafter.
This is a rough, fragmented drama about a couple whose 13-year-old son committed suicide without an apparent reason. The film portrays the day after the funeral and the helpless, abandoned mourning of the parents.
The sad tale of a proletarian malcontent ensconced in a monstrously depressing housing project who—even less effectually than the heroes of Bald-Dog Rock—attempts to change his life. Purchasing a power drill and slinging it across his shoulder like the anti-hero of a spaghetti western, he turns entrepreneur, boring holes in his neighbors’ walls so that they can hang mirrors or pictures.
A Hungarian youth comes of age at Buchenwald during World War II. György Köves is 14, the son of a merchant who's sent to a forced labor camp. After his father's departure, György gets a job at a brickyard; his bus is stopped and its Jewish occupants sent to camps. There, György find camaraderie, suffering, cruelty, illness, and death. He hears advice on preserving one's dignity and self-esteem. He discovers hatred. If he does survive and returns to Budapest, what will he find? What is natural; what is it to be a Jew? Sepia, black and white, and color alternate to shade the mood.
Józsi drives a taxi all day long. He often telephones Éva, who, on the other hand, stays home all day long, having nothing else to do but to be beautiful and wait for Józsi.
In 1947 Hungary, Dorottya is expelled from school for possessing Communist literature and joins a party cell to remain near her lover, only to fall for and marry the group’s leader. After the Communist takeover, her husband vanishes in a political purge, leaving her to suspect her former lover played a role in his disappearance. Now a disillusioned factory cleaner, she is forced to confront her past and face a bleak future alone under the rising Stalinist regime.
Pál Utrius is twenty three years old and in love with his sister.
