II. Budapest Classic Film Marathon: Colonel Redl

Director: István Szabó

Cinematographer: Lajos Koltai
Music: Tamássy Zdenkó

Cast: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Gyula Benkő, Hans Christian Blech, Gudrun Landgrebe, László Mensáros, Armin Mueller-Stahl

The story of the infamous spy chief was based on the diaries of Egon Erwin Kisch, the most prolific journalist of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In the unparalleled career of Alfred Redl, who rose from a Ruthenian family whose father worked on the railways to become a colonel in the imperial army, the film concentrates on the ‘person without characteristics’, the subject character. Even in his childhood, Redl penned poems of praise for the ruler, and his days in cadet school were marked by a particular attraction to his fellow aristocratic students, the Hungarian Kristóf Kubinyi and his sister, Katalin. He wants to be just like them, erasing his past and family from his memory. His ambition and submissive approach eventually lead to a point where he enters into a power play that ends in his sacrifice, too, in order to rescue a failing Monarchy on the threshold of the outbreak of World War One. This film, in the wake of the Oscar winning Mephisto, was similarly nominated and it won virtually every international award.

Ticket information

Ticket price: 1000 HUF
Tickets are available at the Cassa of the Urania National Film Theatre (open every day 10:30-21:00, Credit Cards are accepted) and in the Ticket Sale System of Interticket (available in English too).