ADOPTION (ÖRÖKBEFOGADÁS) (director: Márta Mészáros; screenwriter: Ferenc Grunwalsky; cinematographer: Lajos Koltai; cast: Katalin Berek (Kata Csentes), Péter Fried (Senyi), László Szabó (Joska), Gyöngyvér Vigh (Anna Balint), Árpád Perlaky (Doctor), Hung.-1975)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
What does loneliness mean to a 43-year-old plain looking widow, who is having an affair for the last 5 years with a married man, with two children? Katalin Berek as Kata Csentes, has this most absorbing and self-conscious role, of a woman who is in love with such a man, troubled by the secrecy of the relationship and that she doesn't have a child. She gets a check-up to see if she is in good health to have a baby, but is disappointed that her lover, Joska (Szabó), refuses to make her pregnant, even if she wants to raise the child without him.
She lives comfortably in a pleasant house, not worried over financial matters due to her secure job in the factory, where she is a skilled worker, a trade she learned from her father who was a joiner. Nearby is an orphanage for delinquent girls. One day a group of these girls visit her unannounced. A relationship is struck up with one of the troubled girls, a very attractive brunette, Anna Balint (Gyöngyvér), who befriends the independent-minded Kata, asking her if she could use one of the spare rooms in the house to make love to her boyfriend Senyi (Péter Fried). Kata is put off by this, but is interested in the girl and continues to develop an unlikely friendship with someone she really can't understand, but feels very close to.
The most perceptive thing Anna tells her, when she refuses Kata's offer of adoption, is that abandoned children are all wounded and difficult children to manage. It seems obvious, but it is the most pivotal point of the film. To show that she meant what she said, after a trust begins to grow between the two, Anna pretends to be crying and when Kata goes over to comfort her, she is greeted by Anna's laughter. When Kata slaps her, Anna indignantly replies that she has been hit enough in her lifetime and doesn't need another parent now. The film relates to the bleakness of Hungarian society, its unwillingness to change its ways, and the emptiness of life- and how it is up to young people to change the future for themselves, because the older generation is too set in their ways. The sounds heard from the factory or the music in the background, signal the extremes of pleasure and pain felt. The romantic maudlin Gypsy music that opens the film, is followed by the oppressive factory sounds- a source of confinement and class differences.
Sympathetic with Anna's plight, Kata meddles in her affairs, going to the Home and speaking with the head about helping Anna get married to this 22-year-old, gentle boy, who wants so much to marry her. The only ones opposing the marriage for the underage girl, is her parents, whom she detests. The head of the Home cannot approve of the marriage without the parents permission. On her own, Kata arranges a meeting with the parents, with the boyfriend present, which results in an agreement worked out between them that stipulates that even if they get divorced, it would be up to his parents to provide a home for Anna. The threatening bark of a caged dog greets them on entering and leaving this hostile house, where Anna was a neglected child and became a whore, something the parents don't want to blame themselves for.
The most telling and troubling scene, is at Anna's wedding, where the gay music is not received well by many of the girl guests from the Home, whose sad expressions mirror Anna's change in mood, as she rebuffs her husband's hot kisses and stands off alone in the corner to sulk, as the husband walks away from her in disgust.
Kata is seen leaving the Home with the baby she just adopted and boarding the bus to take her home. It is not a very optimistic ending for a film that touches on subjects that are not very comfortable areas for discussion. The film, in the social realism mode of many Eastern European films, is lighter than most films of this ilk, but what it can't overcome is the total bleakness of its subject matter and how too many of its responses must be considered as clichés to a Western audience. Nevertheless, this is a powerful and well made film, and the performance of Katalin Berek, in a role where she defies social conventions but who must be someone that the audience can empathize with, is handled with a quiet dignity and aplomb. The entire ensemble cast is well suited to bring off this drama in a successful way, making one wonder, that even when the bureaucrats are seen as benevolent and people are finally sympathetic to a young girl's plight, life is still difficult. And for the middle-age Kata, life is so unjust, that even her well intentioned gestures might not be enough to overcome the problematic nature of a country that seems to be stuck in its own malaise.
REVIEWED ON 8/1/99 GRADE: A
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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