Gábor Reviczky

Memento Mori - A váci legenda

A Thorn under the Fingernail

From the intrigues and slander of the branch the painter Hódosi moves out to a hamlet at Hortobágy. He gets into conflict situation as well as he cannot endure that the political and economic elite of the neigbourhood would devastate the nature conservation area with hunting and (tax evading) goose husbandry.

A mi kis falunk

The amusing everyday life of a small, stereotypical Hungarian village focusing on a corrupt mayor, a bodybuilder priest, a hot bartender girl, a dumb police officer, and a womanizing football coach.

A Priceless Day

Irén and Attila, a not-so-young couple, are in love. All they want is a flat of their own where they could live together. Unfortunately, Hungary in the 70s is no place for dreams.

Casting Everything

The story is based around an American Idol kind of TV talent show and the eventual winner of the contest: a young orphan woman, who works at an orphanage herself. As I learned from the werkfilm on the DVD, the story was specifically written for Oláh, who in real life was the runner-up of the very first such TV show in Hungary “Megasztár” (“MegaStar”) in 2004. She didn’t win there despite being many viewers’ favorite and having a terrific voice. It is kind of a consolation that she won in the movie, although reading the legal troubles about getting her fee must have made the victory sour.

Glass Tiger

This film tells the story of a few uneventful days in the life of six pals. Lali, a great fan of America, owns a sandwich stand on the side of the road, called The Glass Tiger. Gaben pinches cars; Fox is a petty swindler; Sanyi a half-wit homeless; Coco can't shut up about getting some dough and going to America; Slimmy keeps playing the saxophone, despite the others' frayed nerves. Gaben talks Lali into buying an old Chevrolet Impala, the real American dream. After the long escapade of getting the car, Lali doesn't even get the chance to try the Chevvy out, because a truck completely demolishes it. Fox in the meantime is looking excitedly for the "Wreck", what he has been trying to sell for big money. But Lali has sold what he thought to be scrap, not good for anything. Fox is threatened by some tough guys to bring it back or pay up. He has to get money at all costs...

Liza, the Fox-Fairy

Liza is a naïve, lonely 30-year-old nurse who wants to fall in love. Her only company is a long-dead Japanese pop star, who turns her into a fox-fairy out of jealousy. Now, every man who desires Liza shall die horribly. Can she overcome the curse?

Hungarian Dracula

Woyzeck

Lajos Kovács (WINGS OF DESIRE) stars as the misused Woyzeck, who ekes out a miserable existence sweeping train tracks, running errands for a bullying army captain and acting as a human guinea pig for a local doctor with ideas about free will. When his common-law wife begins an affair with a local cop, Woyzeck's pocket Bible and near-starvation diet point him on a downward spiral of twisted redemption.

The Wind Is Whistling Under Their Feet

György Szomjas’s first feature—made after a decade of short documentaries—is a bold attempt at a goulash western, set on the puszta, or Great Hungarian Plain, in 1837. Mixing Miklós Jancsó imagery and a Sergio Leone narrative, this ballad-like saga opens with image of a lone horseman on the empty plain, riding past a rude gallows. The film concerns the vengeful return of a legendary betyár (outlaw), briefly a hero to the local herdsmen who oppose the state building a canal across their grazing land. Although Szomjas works from ethnographic records and archival material, it is hardly surprising that this violent, primitivist film would be more popular with Hungarian audiences than critics. Replete with young guns, crooked sheriffs, tavern brawlers and hardbitten plug-uglies, this widescreen film is strikingly shot by Elémer Ragályi (cinematographer for most of Gyula Gazdag’s films)—a feast of loamy, autumnal colors.