The Witness (1979)
- Original title
- A tanú
- Directed by
- Péter Bacsó
- Genre
- comedy film
- Country
- Hungary
- Runtime
- 1h 46m
- Rating
- 8.1 of 10 from 66 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
A Hungarian man gets caught up in a series of absurd situations under a communist regime. The film uses comedy to show the difficulty of speaking honestly about the country's political past.
satiricalabsurdistwrytensedarkly comicslow-burnthought-provokingunsettling
What happens
The Witness (Hungarian: A tanú, also known as Without a Trace), is a Hungarian political satire comedy film directed by Péter Bacsó, co-written by Bacsó and János Újhegyi, and starring Ferenc Kállai, Lajos Őze, Béla Both, and Lili Monori. Created in a tense political climate at a time when talking about the early 1950s and the 1956 Revolution was still taboo, the production was financed and allowed to be made by the communist authorities. It was subsequently banned from release and grew a cult following. It was first screened in 1979. It screened at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. A sequel was produced in 1994 named Megint tanú (Witness Again). In April 2019, a restoration was selected to be shown in the Cannes Classics section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
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Rosszemberek (1979)
It's Me, Jerome (1970)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.