A government is to a nation what a parent is to a child. This idea has been a useful tool for propaganda throughout time and space, especially during war times. A strong parental figure can provide guidance, but the protecting hand can easily become the one that strangles. The new generation of Hungarian directors who presented their works in the student programme at the VFF festival is interested in statements about freedom and resistance against tradition, just like many young filmmakers of the past. Through their work, the students explore ways of how individuals respond to attempts at taking away their identity and autonomy.
The film Adam is Afraid (dir. Mátyás Kovács, 2024), a story of a young man in an alternative universe trying to escape Hungary on the verge of war, takes this idea quite directly. His wife’s family is traditional and patriarchal. The mother, while being compassionate about the struggles of military service Adam must face, does not resist. The father, in contrast, is steadfast in his convictions and does not provide neither reassurance nor guarantees of his safety. In the tradition of fascistic governments, he appeals to the great legacy, past military achievements and religion, passing his cross to his son-in-law to bear. To him and his wife, it is an unfortunate but necessary and glorious sacrifice. But Adam ends up making a different sacrifice, cutting ties with the person he loves for the sake of his own freedom. The dim lighting inside the house that is supposed to hide the family from airstrikes comes from natural sources or candles and creates an intimate atmosphere, a slight feeling of mystery in the air, almost trying to cover up the secret the couple is hiding. The truth is revealed at the candle-lit dinner table. Soon after, the bombing starts, as if the planes above notice the light that was shed on the character’s intentions. The last shot gives a verdict on the family’s fate. The plastic fluorescent sign of Jesus Christ as the beacon of hope in the darkness will not be the protector and savior but is likely to be destroyed like everything else in war.
In Silkworm (dir. Süle Lilla Bonita, 2024),the authority is, on the contrary, represented by a female figure. Shame and alienation become the tools of oppression for the mother-in-law who cannot accept the main character, a dancer, into the family for being too effeminate. After repeated rejection from the grandmother, he creates his own stage in the privacy of the forest. His audience is plants and butterflies, the music birds chirping, and the ray of sunshine becomes a stage light, giving him warmth after previously cold-colored scenes. This intimate and private moment becomes a crucial step for his further, now public, radical self-expression. Even though it does not change the deep prejudice the family has, he asserts his authority with his final scream, reclaiming his right to be himself.
While characters of previous films manage to overcome their oppressors by either fleeing or resisting, the fate of the protagonist in My Own Body (dir. Katica Kozma, 2024) is more pessimistic. Locked in a glass cage by his overprotecting mother, he attempts to regain control through the only means he has left – his own body. Being the caretaker, food provider and an actual ruler in his little glass world, his mother forgets one thing that could potentially cure her son’s illness – the connections he could make with the outside world. The plant nursery where the character works looks unsaturated and cold despite the abundance of greenery. The artificiality of the environment plays into the idea that he, just like the plants, is being formed into an idea of something his mother desires and is not allowed to grow naturally by himself. However, the main character is not being held by force, he has the keys to escape, but the pressure is too strong and he internalizes the restriction imposed on him by his mother. She is in control of almost everything, but he finds an effective point of resistance in his body weight, the one thing she cannot control, which drives her mad with worry. That is why he continues to deny himself food, slowly wilting away in the process.
The ongoing motive of authoritative figures getting in the way of personal relationships reflects a bigger concern of conservatism and authoritarianism that has been on the rise in Hungary in the past years. The answer to that can be either individual resistance, escape, or suppression of the self. Whichever method is chosen, it forever changes the individual and their relationship with others.
