THE OUTPOST

Honor or unimaginable horror? Gizella, an attractive, divorced engineer, is the first woman of her company assigned a vague supervisory job at a field site. Her train steams from the city into a countryside of mud roads and mountains. A filthy coal settlement marks the end of civilization – but not Gizella's destination. A lonely hand-car track leads her ever farther outward into the icy wastes. Men escorting her treat the newcomer with lust, scorn, anger, and finally pity, and strip her of all her possessions, even the labels of her clothes. She begins to seem more prisoner than overseer. And the outpost is still not in sight . . . Textured and foreboding, this powerfully allegory introduces world audiences to Mari Nagy, one of Hungary's most prominent stage actresses, as a heroine whose hopeful determination is her only weapon in a voyage into the very heart of bleakness. In Hungarian with English subtitles. – Charles Cassady