I´m particulary fond of Jancsó (mainly his 60 and 70s work), the german trilogy of Szabó or Bella Tarr but I´m sure there is much more I´m missing. For one thing I miss the great epics that were made in all communist countries (Mihai Viteazu from Romania, Marketa Lazarova from Chequia or The deluge from Poland), there is an hungarian equal to them? Some recomendations anyone?
Why are you interested in Hungary in particular? I don't really know anything about Hungarian film apart from this and ol' Bela Tarr, but for instance Poland has produced many great filmmakers, like Kieslowski and Wajda. And of course there are many, many great Russian directors, but as for Hungary... I really have no idea at all.
The doctor has spoken.
I´m interested in all eastern europe films, I already know from the poles you say, and, as you, I know little about hungarian cinema. I´ve made a similar request in the Kontroll forum. If you want to see some suggestions from people go there. It´s really a lot more to it than Tarr and jancsó.
shareThe greatest hungarian film i've seen (and one of the greatest movies i've EVER seen) is called "The Fifth Seal" by another well-known hungarian new wave director Zoltan Fabri.
It takes place during 2nd world war in Hungary and tells the story of a few men who use to chatter in a pub in the evenings about moral and ideals, but one day their spoken ideals are put to test. It's absolutely overwhelming film.
I saw it this last fall on local university during a hungarian film class (where I fell in love with hungarian cinema). I tried to search for it since without much success - only googled out that a VHS edition exists or once existed.
btw. I'm Czech, so if you want some information on Czech cinema, feel free to contact me via personal message. "Marketa Lazarova" is indeed considered by many Czech critics to be our greatest film ever (though it's not my own personal favorite). Quite similar to it is "Udoli vcel" (Valley of the Bees), both films have been directed by the same director Frantisek Vlacil in the end of the sixties.
I enjoyed "My Twentieth Century." It is a semi-comical story of twin sisters and is beautifully shot in black and white. Other than a long, gratuitous sex scene and a long, boring scene in a college lecture hall, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
shareAnyone who likes Jancsó, must check out Belá Tarr whose films exhibit a vague similarity to Jancsó's style.
“People need to see Jancsó’s really beautiful three or four first movies. The highest mountain is The Round-Up...” - Béla Tarr
I found more hungarian films with English subtitles available to buy on this site http://czechmovie.com/e/hungarian-films-49/