Cinema
The Witness
A tanú
Péter Bacsó · 1979
Synopsis
In 1950, József Pelikán, a dyke guard on the Danube, raises his children alone. He secretly slaughters his pig, which is then forbidden, and saves from drowning a former comrade from the underground who has become a minister; but the meat is discovered, and Pelikán goes to prison. He comes out without knowing why, and Comrade Virág, a high official, appoints him in turn director of an indoor swimming pool, of an amusement park, then of a research institute on the Hungarian orange, warning him that he will one day be asked for something.
Context
Shot in 1968 and 1969, the film was banned as soon as it was finished and stayed on the shelf for ten years, shown only at restricted screenings. It was released in Budapest on 6 June 1979. Selected at Cannes in 1981 in the Un certain regard section, it was then bought by thirty-two countries. A restored version, without the cuts that Bacsó had himself made in advance for the censors, was presented at Cannes Classics in 2019.
Who it is for
A satire of Hungarian Stalinism, in which the absurd takes the place of an indictment; released on DVD in France by Clavis Films.
Prizes and reception
Having become a cult film in Hungary, it found an international audience after its screening at Cannes in 1981.