A historical film that can also be viewed as the final element of the ‘eastern’ cycle of the 1970s. The plot is set in the late 17th century during the Thököly Uprising. Through the fate of a young soldier, it shows how the individual falls victim to the unceasing flow of history and how he is forced to make moral choices under the pressure of events. Director János Rózsa deliberately sets out not to mythologize the age but instead to show it ‘warts and all’, and there are few equals to the shocking denouement scene: we see things that have never before, nor since, been screened in Hungarian cinema.
NFI - Film Archive










