2023-11-24 09:56
Library and Information Centre: 29 November, Wednesday, 6:00 pm
Men on the Alps
black and white Hungarian film drama
1941
90 min
2K restored
Language: Hungarien
Subtitle: English
Director: István Szőts
Screenplaywriter: József Nyírő, István Szőts
Cinematographer: Ferenc Fekete
Editor: Mihály Morell, Zoltán Kenyéri
Music: Ferenc Farkas
Cast: Alice Szellay, János Görbe, Péterke Ferenczi, József Bihari, János Makláry, Lenke Egyed
A timber exploitation contractor persuades the woodcutter, Erdei Csutak Gergő, to move in the village his family, offering them work that pays well. At their new place, the contractor rushes at Gergő's wife, Anna. Frightened, she tries to escape, but falls in an abyss. In vain do they try to cure her, Anna dies. Having no money to have her carried home. Gergő takes her body on the train as alive. He kills the contractor in revenge and is therefore put in prison. At Christmas, he escapes to give his son a present, but a gendarme's bullet hits him. His fellow-woodcutters pretend to have captured the run-away prisoner who is now dead. They use the blood-money to buy his orphaned little boy, Gergő, clothes and a pair of boots.
Szőts shot the film on original locations in Transylvania, the wildly novel landscape emerges as an independent character.
Szőts' film was a pioneer in the international film world, and the creators of Italian neorealism celebrated it as their forerunner. At its domestic premiere, it was met with incomprehension and scorn, but at the 1942 Venice Film Festival, it was awarded the Most artistic film prize.
