The Lady From Budapest – Restored Lifework of Judit Elek

ARS POETICA

„I became a filmmaker to be able to tell what I see around me, what I have lived, what the old people lived in this very ’draughty’ little gateway country, where there is always a different power than what the people would like it to be just and good, but they put up with it because they believe that this is the way of the world. And I, like a female Don Quixote, am fighting the windmill, not giving in to it, and I hope I die that way. Perhaps it is another motivation, that after 60 years of work I find that my oldest film is still alive and has an impact on people if they have opportunity to see it. In conclusion, I make films because I need to be loved; and through my films I can perhaps make people love me who have never met me in person.”

“I’m interested in all things that are documentary.” Hungarian film director and screenwriter Judit Elek is a Kossuth and Balázs Béla Prize laureate, and a member of the European Film Academy. In 1986, she was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France.

She has created an impressive oeuvre, lifting raw reality onto the level of poetry and with considerable social boldness. Her work spanning more than half a century is remarkable in Hungarian film history. She has made taboosmashing films that are free spirited both in terms of theme and choice of form, whether presentday psychological vignettes, sociological reports or works serving to probe historical traumas. Her films have won prizes at, for example, Oberhausen, Locarno, Mannheim, Montpellier, Paris, Montreal, Salerno, Cairo, Louisville, Chicago and Toronto. As director and screenwriter, she became – from the start of her career – a leading female creative artist of resurgent modern Hungarian filmmaking together with Márta Mészáros and Lívia Gyarmathy.

Judit Elek was born in Budapest in 1937. As a child, she survived the Holocaust and the war in a ghetto. Her father was a book dealer so she grew up around books. Aged 18, she participated in the 1956 Uprising and she was in Paris in 1968, exactly at the time of the student protests. The historical events and trauma she experienced have been a fundamental determinant of her filmmaking.

Pál Gábor, Imre Gyöngyössy, Zoltán Huszárik, Zsolt Kézdi-Kovács, Ferenc Kardos and János Rózsa. She then became a member of MAFILM where she worked as an assistant. Members of her class made up the core of Balázs Béla Studio, the youth experimental workshop, and they won numerous awards at international festivals with their shorts assimilating the influences of European New Wave trends. Judit Elek’s initial works are lyrical analyses of loneliness in which she stylized the spontaneity of cinéma direct into ‘floating poetry’. Encounter (Találkozás, 1963) was the first Hungarian cinéma direct film featuring non-actors and improvized dialogue; it is about the fictional meeting of a nurse and a bachelor, the writer Iván Mándy. Inhabitants of Castles (Kastélyok lakói, 1966) and the two-part How Long Does Man Live? (Meddig él az ember?, 1967) were characteristic documentaries which in their lyrical relationships are closely associated with the Pierre Perraultstyle of cinéma direct. The director, who attended school in a working environment, and the cinematographer Elemér Ragályi, who joins her here, drew – after lengthy research and photography – a socio-portrait depicting human life in its entirety revolving around the lonely old worker on the cusp of retirement and the young apprentice. The film does not concentrate on an analysis of the social background but instead it is a documentary presentation of human relationships. The film was screened in the Critics section at Cannes in 1968, which famously closed early due to the student protests in Paris. It went on to win the grand prix at Oberhausen and the jury prize at Locarno.

In 1961 she graduated from the Academy of Drama and Film in the famed class of Félix Máriássy. Classmates included István Szabó,

© Lucinda Douglas-Menzies

The Lady from Constantinople werk – Géza Gonda, Elemér Ragályi and Judit Elek © Endre Réger

Her first feature film, The Lady from Constantinople (Sziget a szárazföldön, 1969) is similarly a movie about loneliness and ageing packaged in a surreal tale of an apartment exchange. The screenwriter was Iván Mándy, who worked in countless Hungarian films including Pál Sándor’s cult movie Football of the Good Old Days (Régi idők focija). The figure of the little old lady, in whom the beauty of fantasy is combined with intense isolation, was moulded from two real women. The role is played by Manyi Kiss, one of the finest Hungarian actresses, in the company of a host of fascinating amateur and provincial actors. It is a masterclass in how to use the micro-realistic toolkit of documentary filmmaking in a feature film, blending authentic reality and construction. The scene of the flat viewing on Nyugati Square and the happening of the flat viewing were revolutionary in their approach; the professional actress enquires about the prices in the midst of those also attending the event. In the small maid’s room, the camera of the longtake rotation linking a dozen people shows as people have a glimpse into each other’s flat and, in the same way, into each other’s problems. The ‘sympathizing camera’ leaves the ongoing processes untouched while the unexpected

micro-details become absurd. The film proved a hit at Cannes.

Her next films, the documentaries A Hungarian Village (Istenmezején 1972–73-ban) and A Commonplace Story (Egyszerű történet) were made over five years together with Elemér Ragályi in an out-of-the-way mining village. By tracing the destiny and relationships of two girls who yearn to get away, it presents a full 360-degree psychological report on the rural Hungary of ‘socialism under construction’, the embittered state of the peasantry reduced to the proletariat, and the tangled system of prejudices.

“I’m interested in all things that are documentary,” Judit Elek once declared in an interview. She wrote her first film with a historical theme, Identification- Martinovics’s Jacobin Conspiracy (Vizsgálat Martinovics Ignác szászvári apát és társai ügyében), using the documents of the Martinovics trial together with the brilliant Hungarian writer Péter Nádas in the early 1970s. Hungarian cultural policy headed up by György Aczél drew a parallel between the 1949 Rajk show trial and the film about the executed leader of the Hungarian Jacobin movement reacting to the French Revolution. As a consequence, filming was suspended. In 1980, it was released as a TV film, which proved extremely popular in France, being distributed together with Wajda’s Danton and Renoir’s La Marseillaise.

This was followed by the present-day snapshot Maybe Tomorrow (Majd holnap, 1978), which was shot with the actors of an outstanding experimental studio, Studio K: Miklós Székely B., Erzsébet Gaál, Judit Meszléry and Andor Lukáts. It is an extremely powerful Zeitgeist-capturing

film that dissects the bleak prospects of the restoration after 1968, the drift, depressing unresolved issues, as two couples struggle against their living conditions and their own boredom with life.

It won the FIPRESCI prize in Locarno. These ‘mindset’ films represented an entire trend in the late 1970s (Béla Tarr: Family Nest (Családi tűzfészek) 1977; Péter Gothár: A Priceless Day (Ajándék ez a nap), 1979; András Jeles: Little Valentino (A kis Valentinó), 1979.

Maybe Tomorrow werk – Elemér Ragályi and Judit Elek © Endre Réger

The Lady from Constantinople werk – Elemér Ragályi, Manyi Kiss, Judit Elek © Endre Réger

Maria’s Day (Mária-nap) was also written with György Pethő in 1973, but she could only make it 10 years later, on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of the birth of Sándor Petőfi, considered the greatest Hungarian poet, because here the censor perceived in the film the parable of the post-1956 period. This is a typical Zeitgeist-capturing film, a work about relationships. It does not glorify the heroic Hungarian poet who fell during the War of Independence, instead depicting the chaotic situation in terms of how heavily the shadow of the failed revolution weighed on the family of this poet genius. The film was shown – to considerable acclaim – in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 1984. Le Monde termed Judit Elek ‘Ingmar Bergman’s sister’.

a maid who disappeared in 1882. They were subjected to the most horrendous torture in order to extract confessions. The film won several prizes in America and France, and this led her to Elie Wiesel, with whom she filmed her documentary To Speak the Unspeakable (Mondani a mondhatatlant) in 1997. This core work of Holocaust remembrance follows the life of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate writer born in Sighetu Marmatiei (Mármarossziget) in the sub-Carpathians and the Máramaros community all the way through Auschwitz to Buchenwald. Wiesel recreates his 15-year-old self with his own lyric monologues; it was shown at all the major international festivals, similarly to the film A Free Man – The Life of Ernő Fisch (Egy igaz ember – Fisch Ernő élete).

name of Jancsó Miklós, István Szabó’s Father (Apa), István Gaál’s Green Years (Zöldár) and Sándor Sára’s The Upthrown Stone (Feldobott kő).

She launched her ‘Jewish period’ with Memories of River (Tutajosok) made between 1987–89. It processes contemporary documents of the infamous Tiszaeszlár blood libel show trial. Jewish rafters were accused of the murder of

The outstanding work of her oeuvre is Awakening (Ébredés) shot in 1994, which is her self-portrait from the 1950s. It is about a girl who loses her family and in the meantime is forced into adulthood. Elek started working on the screenplay in 1959; it was published in the form of a short novel in 1964. However, the film was made only 30 years later. The film is a dual story of the deceased mother and her daughter, where the imagination of the girl constantly recreates the mother reacting to ongoing events. It is full of overwhelming desires and emotions, while the historical background of the 1950s, the real world, impinges as a nightmare. By the time the girl grows up, the mother’s memory has faded. If the film had been completed at the time it was written, it could well have ranked as one of the most powerful, modern historical flashbacks of Hungarian film, standing, for example, alongside My Way Home („Így jöttem”) hallmarked by the

The Lady from Constantinople werk – Elek Judit © Endre Réger

How Long Does Man Live? werk

The first Hungarian cinéma direct film is the story of a classified ad. A nurse and a bachelor meet with the intention of going to the cinema but they cannot get tickets. Instead, they sit down in a cafeteria and talk. All dialogue between the nurse and the creative colleague of Judit Elek, the writer Iván Mándy, is improvized.

ENCOUNTER Találkozás (1963)

Directed by Judit Elek

Screenplay by Judit Elek

Director of photography: István Zöldi

Music: András Szőllősy

Cast: Iván Mándy

Genre: documentary

Production: Balázs Béla Studio

Technical specs: black and white, 22 min

Format: 1.37:1, 4K restored, grading supervised by Elemér Ragályi DP

The structure of the lyrical documentary, made at the Balázs Béla Studio, is based on the timeless elegance of lute music. Festetich Castle in Keszthely is a museum. A noble couple, elderly people, poets and writers, children – the inhabitants of the castles of Szécsény, Gödöllő, Szigliget and Hédervár in the 1960s.

INHABITANTS OF CASTLES

Kastélyok lakói (1966)

Directed by Judit Elek

Screenplay by Judit Elek

Director of photography: István Zöldi

Music: Bálint Bakfark

Cast: György Somlyó, Lajos Kassák, Gyula Hernádi, Sándor Weöres

Genre: documentary

Production: Balázs Béla Studio

Technical specs: black and white, 27 min

Format: 1.37:1, 4K restored, grading supervised by Elemér Ragályi DP

The story of two workers, the end and the beginning. Uncle Pista has been a lathe operator in Csepel for 40 years. He is tired and sickly, but when he has to work, he always gets better. As he retires, they emphasise in a fine speech that they count on him and his experience. He is replaced by another man, relationships are broken. The old man can’t find his place. In the small village on the banks of the Tisza, Pista and his sister are raised alone by their mother, and their alcoholic father has not been seen for years. Pista becomes an industrial apprentice in Pest. In their first class they learn to hammer.

HOW LONG DOES MAN LIVE? Meddig él az ember? (1967)

Directed by Judit Elek

Screenplay by Judit Elek

Director of photography: Elemér Ragályi

Music: András Szőllősy

Cast: István Valovics, Pista Pásztor

Genre: documentary

Production: Balázs Béla Studio

Technical specs: black and white, 56 min

Format: 1.37:1, 4K restored, grading supervised by Elemér Ragályi DP

AWARDS

Cannes, 1968, Semaine de la Critique /Sélection officielle/

Oberhausen, 1968. First Prize and Young Jury Award

Locarno, 1968, Prize of the Jury

Miskolc 1968. Prize of the City of Miskolc, Prize for Photography

An elderly lady decides she wants to exchange her two-room flat for something smaller. The storm of people interested rattles her solitary life with short-lived acquaintances connecting her with strangers for just a brief moment. Judit Elek’s first feature film is a sensitive portrait of loneliness and human relations painted through unusual everyday scenes and delicately grotesque humour. Several scenes in the film were shot in documentary style with random people walking down the street. Lead actress Manyi Kiss gives a most touching performance.

THE LADY FROM CONSTANTINOPLE

Sziget a szárazföldön (1969)

Directed by Judit Elek

Screenplay by Iván Mándy

Director of photography: Elemér Ragályi

Music: Miklós Körmendi

Cast: Manyi Kiss, Edit Soós, Éva Schubert, Erzsi Pásztor, Ági Margitai, István Dégi

Genre: psychological drama

Production: Mafilm, Studio 4

Technical specs: black and white, 76 min

Format: 1.85:1, 4K restored, grading supervised by Elemér Ragályi, DP

AWARDS AND SELECTIONS:

Cannes, 1969, Semaine de la Critique, Sélection Officielle

1970 – Hungarian Film Week – Prize for Best Actress – Manyi Kiss

San Sebastian International Film Festival, 1969

New York International Film Festival, 1969

London International Film Festival, 1969

Sydney International Film Festival, 1970

Melbourne International Film Festival, 1970

Tokyo International Film Festival, 1970

© Endre Réger

In Istenmezeje, a small village in the county of Heves, time appears to be standing still. The majority of young people who have just finished local elementary school are willing to fall in line with pressure from the community and follow the paths taken by their parents and grandparents: the boys go to work in the mine, the girls get married. Judit Elek, director of this revealing documentary, concentrates on the everyday struggles and opportunities of young women who would prefer to shape their lives according to their own dreams and wishes. This is a prelude to her work Egyszerű történet (A Commonplace Story, 1975).

A HUNGARIAN

VILLAGE

Istenmezején 1972–73-ban (1974)

Directed by Judit Elek

Screenplay by Judit Elek

Director of photography: Elemér Ragályi

Genre: documentary

Production: Budapest Studio

Technical specs: black and white, 78 min

Format: 1.37:1, 4 K restored, grading supervised by Elemér Ragályi DP

© Magda B. Müller

The initial frames of the film conjure up a rural idyll, yet profound social transformation, the gradual decline of a centuries-long stasis, also bear tension. Strong, autonomous women struggle against their exclusion in an ultralocalized world traditionally dominated by men. However, this unfolds not through spectacular dramaturgy but merely with a patient observation of the everyday. We observe ‘only’ the commonplaces of life – human relationships, rebellion and acceptance, the closed life of a small community lacking all perspective and the internal relations of two of its families – in this uncontrived, sociographical documentary.

A COMMONPLACE STORY Egyszerű

történet (1975)

Directed by Judit Elek

Screenplay by Judit Elek

Director of photography: Elemér Ragályi

Genre: documentary

Production: Budapest Studio

Technical specs: black and white, 100 min

Format: 1.37:1, 4K restored, grading supervised by Elemér Ragályi, DP

AWARDS AND SELECTIONS:

1975 – Mannheim – Special Award

Rotterdam International Film Festival 1975

© Magda B. Müller

István (Andor Lukáts) and Eszter (Judit Meszléry) exist in separate marriages until they meet and fall in love with each other. Notwithstanding this, neither wants to lose their spouse and children. Their relationship is an open secret in both families, they don’t have to hide anything but they both know that sooner or later they must find a solution to this situation that is wearing everyone down. Judit Elek’s film is an insight into the messy private relationships of the late Kádár era. Acrimonious scenes involving the two lovers shot in cramped apartments, amidst crumbling plaster and tired furniture, depict with cruel accuracy not only the distortions of personal relationships but also the desperation of an era.

MAYBE TOMORROW

Majd holnap… (1979)

Directed by Judit Elek

Screenplay by György Pethő

Director of photography: Elemér Ragályi

Cast: Judit Meszléry, Andor Lukáts, Eszter Szakács, István Szőke, Hédi Temessy, Miklós Székely B.

Genre: drama

Production: Hunnia Stúdió

Technical specs: colour, 105 min

Format: 1.37:1, 4K restored, grading supervised by Elemér Ragályi, DP

AWARDS AND SELECTIONS: 1980 – Locarno Film Festival – FIPRESCI Prize

© Magda B. Müller

1866. Members of the Szendrey family gather to celebrate the name-day of the younger daughter, Mária. While politely going through the rituals of the family reunion, everyone airs their own particular grievances going back decades. Júlia Szendrey is sick and wants to leave her second husband, Árpád Horváth. Her sister Mária finds it hard to control her hatred because her husband, Pál Gyulai, has always loved Júlia. István Petőfi, yearning for Mária, announces that he is not prepared to look after the worthless Zoltán Petőfi. Tamped-down emotions and contradictions keep flaring up time and again. The film is tainted by regretted compromises and an air of bitterness, it is about the great Hungarian poet Sándor Petőfi even though he is nowhere to be seen in it.

MARIA’S DAY

Mária-nap (1983)

Directed by Judit Elek

Screenplay by György Pethő

Director of photography: Emil Novák

Music: Ferenc Liszt

Cast: Edit Handel, Éva Igó, Tamás Fodor, Imre Csiszár, Lajos Kovács, Sándor Szabó

Genre: drama

Production: Objektív Stúdió

Technical specs: colour, 119 min

Format: 1.37:1, 4K restored, grading supervised by Emil Novak DP

AWARDS:

Cannes, 1984, Un Certain Regard, Sélection Officielle

Budapest, 1984, National Film Festival, Best Photography Award to Emil Novák, Best Actress Prize to Edit Handel

USA Sales Agent: Milosh Strelik

© Magda B. Müller

In a modest Rusyn village where most earn a living as log rafters, the men are preparing for yet another trip. The women find it hard to let them go, as if sensing what awaits them. Rafting down the river Tisza, they come across the body of Eszter Solymosi, and thus become ensnared in the infamous Tiszaeszlár trial. After Márianap (Maria’s Day) and her TV film on Ignác Martinovics, Judit Elek once again took up a historical subject; having examined the case notes, she decided to make a film about the notorious Tiszaeszlár show trial from the perspective of the loggers who were accused of corpse smuggling.

MEMORIES OF A RIVER

Tutajosok (1989)

Directed by Judit Elek

Written by Károly Eötvös

Screenplay by Judit Elek

Director of photography: Gábor Halász

Music: Péter Eötvös, György Kurtág

Cast: Sándor Gáspár, Pál Hetényi, András Stohl, Zoltán Mucsi, Róbert Koltai, Tamás Fodor

Genre: drama

Production: Budapest Film Studio, Feeling Productions, La Sept Cinéma

Technical specs: colour, 139 min

Format: 1.85:1, 4K restored, grading supervised by Gábor Halász DP

AWARDS:

Montreal, 1989, /Ecumenical Award

Créteil, 1990, First Prize

Montpellier, 1990 International Jewish Film Festival, First Prize

Salerno, 1990, First Prize.

New York, 1990, First International Jewish Film Festival, Opening Gala Carnegie Hall

San Francisco, 1990, International Jewish Film Festival

© István Bucsányi

Budapest, 1952. One day, Kati, a dreamy 13-year-old, learns that her mother has died. Since her father works in the countryside, the girl remains in the flat with the other tenants although in truth she is totally alone. In her imagination she resurrects her much loved mother, who thus continues to watch over her daughter. Everyone feels sorry for her because of her orphaned state but she herself has no interest in empty pleasantries. She seeks her own experiences and determines to follow her own path. In just one year the dreamy teen blossoms into a young woman. The novel by director Judit Elek (1964) forms the basis for this film.

AWAKENING Ébredés (1994)

Directed by Judit Elek

Written by Judit Elek

Screenplay by Judit Elek

Director of photography: Gábor Balogh

Music: László Melis

Cast: Fruzsina Eszes, Judit Hernádi, András Kern, Zoltán Gera, Sándor Zsótér

Genre: drama

Production: Budapest Film Studio

Technical specs: colour, 106 min

Format: 1.66:1, 4K restored, grading supervised by Zsolt Balog DP

AWARDS: Salerno, 1996 Main Prize

© Magda B. Müller

Maybe Tomorrow werk – Elemér Ragályi and Judit Elek © Endre Réger