A smart swipe at the Communist system in Hungary, before the fall of that system, issues from Love, one of the finest films of the Seventies. A jailed political dissident provides moviemaker Karoly Makk with a fulcrum for exploring the theme of marital and family love. That is, we witness love as an attitude, love as an emotion, love when it refuses to collapse.
The two main figures are the dissident’s wife and his aging mother, the latter of whom is semi-bitchy but still pitiable. She dies before the Hungarian government releases her hapless son, who must now return to loving his hapless wife (sophisticatedly played by Mari Torocsik). Talented Makk directed with prodigious imagination.
(In Hungarian with English subtitles)
