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

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)

Trailer

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