Meanwhile, here are the unknown Hungarian films I thought I should recommend:

The Fifth Seal (Az ötödik pecsét), I think, is a great film that should have received wide international attention (but got it late at home too). In particular, it should be shown to any Westerner growing up in a democracy and quick to judge those who haven't, to understand what living in a totalitarian dictature really means. It's hard to give a short summary that incites but doesn't give too much away, but I try:

This is an allegoric story in three acts, playing in besieged but still fascist-controlled Budapest towards the end of WWII. First, a circle of friends play cards and talk in a basement pub. One of them poses a hypothetical moral choice to the others, who freak out, each in their own way. Next, everyone goes home, and we get a better understanding of the personal philosophy of life of each. In the last part, all of them are arrested by the fascists, who find out that anonymous charges against them were wrong, but the elder interrogator wants to demonstrate to his subordinate what real power is - and the captives now face a moral choice in real-life, and not the same one.

Taking Sides is a film by István Szabó, director of 1981 Oscar winner Mephisto, the film about an actor making nice with the Nazi regime to further his career (which launched Klaus Maria Brandauer's international career). Szabó kind of got struck, continuing to make films about artists in hard times, but this is one of the best: it is about the post-WWII ordeal of the great conductor Furtwängler (played by Stellan Skarsgård), doggedly pursued by an American officer responsible for Nazi purification (played superbly by Harvey Keitel). Unfortunately, from reviews I read, most viewers saw the lead characters as Good vs Bad (taking sides themselves), rather than see the limitations and blindnesses of both. This film is again about staying moral and staying alive in a totalitarian dictature.

Still in the dark, but also fit as entertainment: Kontroll is a new multi-genre debut film by a young director who grew up in the USA, so we get a special mix of action movies and cinematography with the Eastern European "we're all losers and nothing works" view of life. The film's anti-heroes are a team of ticket controllers in a fictious decrepit Eastern European subway system (filmed in the Budapest metro, but with all station names removed, emblems replaced with an invented one). But then on, we have elements of hyper-realism, grotesque comedy, exoticism, surreal thriller, love story, social critique, and a lot else.

The last film I recommend is legendary in Hungary, but even stripped of the culturally or language-wise limited parts, I think it has to be a great comedy even for Westerners (a US commentator at IMDB ranked it right up with Dr. Strangelove, and I tend to agree). The Witness (A tanú) was a film first indexed by the communist regime, later allowed into only limited release, yet it spawned numerous catchphrases and expressions in wide use today (including what captured the above US commentator most, "Hungarian Orange" - that is now also the title of a liberal weekly). This film plays in the Stalinist era, its hero is a simple man, a dyke-guard who is caught up in various silly propaganda efforts of the regime. He unintentionally causes havoc in all his roles, including the last one: being witness in a show trial, after which he is imprisoned.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}