Eszter Szakács

On the novel by Mór Jókai. The first half of the XVIII century. Several decades of life of a noble family Karpati.

Dans sa famille, tout le monde aime bien Petiot.Hélas, personne n'a le temps de s'occuper de lui.Le papa, la maman, la grand-mère du petit garçon ont tous leurs affaires et jamais une minute de libre. Un jour, son père enferme Petiot dans la salle de bain pour le punir. L'enfant rêve.... Soudain, sur l'eau de la baignoire apparaît le bateau des contes de fées avec, à son bord, les deux nains Kokossi et Bobossa. Le garçon leur dit sa peine : c'est parce qu'ils n'ont pas assez de temps que ses parents le négligent. Les deux nains ne pourraient-ils pas leur procurer ce temps si précieux ?...

Director Sandor Simo based this film on his recollections of a period in his father's life just after World War II. In the film, Janos Torok is a chemist and an entrepreneur With enormous enthusiasm, he gets loans to purchase a small chemical plant and begins experiments to create innovative products, such as hormones. Meanwhile, the communist party has come to dominate Hungarian life in such a way that his activities are viewed as little more than criminal. He is hauled away to a prison camp, but even then his letters home are full of boundless optimism and his ideas for further experiments.

Andras (Zygmunt Malanowicz), an older man employed as a furniture designer, gets a life-jarring shock when he returns from a trip and finds that some of the work he developed has been given over to a younger employee. This instigates a mid-life crisis over his own identity and his sense of security and self-worth, all exacerbated by a recent divorce and estrangement from his son. Recognizing that he needs help, the man goes for therapy and starts to face his problems. Therapy counteracts some of the damage of living, and the man starts to consider his son, his relationships with women, and his father in a different light.

Three thirtysomething chemical scientists, Laci, Gyuri and Kati celebrate the success of their development program before New Year's Eve with drinking for several days. But the morning of New Year's Eve does not bring the expected recognition, because the nice, bald, old director is replaced by a young, bald, but disagreeable one. In a sodden atmosphere it becomes clear that everybody has an axe to grind in the informative discussions.

A couple in love, but sadly married to other partners. What is to be done? A diagnosis of a comfortable but profoundly incapable society, a Hungary suffering from an endemic private life disorder, observable both among the urban middle and the rural lower classes. A descent into a relationship’s demise, more from the tired inertia of a country that has lost all direction and sense of purpose than any ill will.

The film director starts shooting his film about the manager of a large corporation who committed suicide for mysterious reasons. As the cumbersome process of making a film goes along, everybody involved in it starts having differing opinions of the tragedy, its causes and its victim.