BALINT FABIAN MEETS GOD

Zoltan Fabri, considered the dean of Hungarian directors, articulates another powerful statement about the effects of war on his country's peasant life. BALINT FABIAN MEETS GOD returns to characters from Fabri's “The Hungarians” (1978), presented in last year's Festival. The latter film dealt with World War II and the emigration of Balint Fabian's sons to Germany. Fabri now looks back to World War I and its aftermath as experienced by the same family. Constantly haunted by the face of the Italian soldier he bayoneted at the close of the war, Fabian (Gabor Koncz) comes home to his distraught wife. During the war, the local priest became her lover. The affair is kept hidden from Fabian by his two sons, who avenged his honor by drowning the priest. Baffled by his wife's despair, Fabian also has to cope with the political changes brought about by a failed Revolution. He works for a returned-to-power baron but circumstances force his shift of loyalties to the other side, aligning himself with the oppressed. The simple peasant is put to still greater tests of inner strength as he guesses his family's tragic secret, revealed by a tavern keeper's hint after the wife's funeral. The tavern keeper is murdered and Fabian's sons leave town. Left with nowhere to turn by God, Fabian's overturned world is filled with confusion and unanswered questions. His desperate quest leads to only one dark path.”. . .delicate lyricism, precise photography, sensitive scoring. . .the remarkable performance of Gabor Koncz invests every one of Fabian's uncomprehending stares with a dimension of simple heroism.” – Derek Elley, International Film Guide