Classics Film Marathon: Shortcuts

Director: Jiří Menzel

Screenplay by Bohumil Hrabal, Jiří Menzel, DOP: Jaromír Šofr, music by Jiří Šust

Cast: Magda Vášáryová, Jiří Schmitzer, Jaromír Hanzlík, Rudolf Hrusínský, Petr Čepek, Oldřich Vlach

“Bored? Get a racoon.” This phrase appeared on firewalls around Budapest in the 1990s. There are only a few films from which so many, and so many brilliant, catch-phrases derive than from the Menzel classic. There is something very Central-Eastern European in the Hrabal and Menzel oeuvres, due to which we Hungarians feel both artists are honorary Magyars. The release of Hrabal works was always an event, and this good-humoured and at the same slightly sad, hopeless world, although the residents were not embittered by the hopelessness, this mentality discovering magnificence and beauty in everyday moments of life even amidst the dullness, was invented in order for survival in the region dominated by the Soviet empire. When the wife of the brewery director, that is, the beautiful Magda Vasaryova, climbs up the chimney with uncle Pepin, or when she downs a pint of beer, then it encapsulates everything that is worth knowing about our world. These were not simply beautiful or memorable scenes, they were as if they were happening to us. Because we wanted so much that they should happen to us. Because this was truly how it was possible to survive. In short, this film is a part of the collective memory.

Ticket: 1800 HUF

More programmes of the Budapest Classics Film Marathon in Urania National Filmtheatre.