Armand it is not a film about a man or a event. it is only picture of a state of mind. nothing else. the silhouette of Nagy Imre, the images, music, acting, tension, accounts of details are pieces of this purpose - authentic picture of a society feelings. so, it is impressive work of a great director about a profound Hungary. a Hungary who can be any other country of Europe under Communism. therefore, the message is so realistic. because the testimony is part of a lot of existences. because courage, sufferance, ideals, need of real values are bones of each society. for me, it is reflection about absurd cruelty of a time.homage to forgotten sacrifices. and subtle warning. or, only a letter from a hero out of every definitions.

kerekesbalazs I think this movie is pretty useless. It does not give you any perspective on the revolution of 1956. The viewer does not get any idea on the background of the revolution. The film pretty much concentrates solely on the life of Imre Nagy, the prime minister of Hungary during the revolution. You cannot learn too much about him having watched the movie either, since it only shows brief, emotional clips about his life before 56. We do not learn how this man coped with the terrors of Stalin while he was living in Russia, and that he was an agent of Cheka the predecessor of KGB. The film also does not say anything about how many times Nagy withdrew his political opinion and corrected his former point of view under pressure from his comrades and the Party. All in all, until 56 Nagy was pretty much like any of his comrades from the communist party's elite, but strangely, in 56, even after the revolution had been crushed, he was not prepared to make another compromise, or even plead guilty which may have saved his life. This contrast in his personality that makes him interesting, but the film does not show any of these conflicts within Nagy's personality. Overall this movie does not provide too much information about the 1956 revolution, neither does it show Nagy's true personality, and how his view on communism evolved over his life, and worst of all it is quite boring as well.

isti06 I have just arrived home from the movie so the experience is very recent, but I still don't know what was the director's intention. It was too general to know Nagy Imre's life and too idealized to know the main character's real personality, tells you too few about the revolution of 1956. I had the feeling that Márta Mészáros wants to speak not only about this historical person's fate but also about others who were sentenced and killed after the revolution. But Nagy Imre is not a good sample for this as he was handled specially in the prison as the former prime minister. I think Jan Nowicki played great just like many others in this movie but you may find some very bad performances also. The picture is really beautiful and always match to the actual sequences which change very often and fast.

prsphne No question this film is visually beautiful, historically authentic and the theme itself is dealt with humanly and with much humility. Jan Nowicki was a truly authentic Nagy Imre and I guess he will be praised much for this role not only in Hungary. However, I find it quite sad that some of the dialogues were extremely constrained and artificial. Mácsai's part is totally unrealistic for instance, not to mention the parts of the grandchildren (brrr...). The whole project is so important to so many in Hungary that Mészáros Márta (an otherwise excellent director) should have had a little more attention in accuracy and authenticity in the dialogues as well. (My feeling is that Jancsó shouldn't have been allowed close to the script.)