ROKONOK

A small Hungarian town, about one hour by train from Budapest, around 1930. István Kopjass, an idealistic young lawyer, is appointed chief state prosecutor by the local mayor –“Uncle Bela to you”, as he says to his grateful new appointee. Kopjass would now seem to have achieved everything he wanted in life: a beautiful wife, a good job, and power into the bargain. But Kopjass’ well-meaning attempts to dissociate himself from his corrupt predecessors fail because, among other reasons, they all claim to be “related” to the new incumbent. When the state prosecutor succumbs to temptation and not only purchases a bargain-priced house from a dodgy banker but embarks upon an affair with the man’s wife, the initial tide of benevolence begins to turn...

This first Hungarian-language film by István Szabó since Édes Emma, drága Böbe (1992) attracted an impressive total of 200,000 viewers to Hungarian cinemas. Its themes of power and its abuse, seduction and culpability, are typical to this director, who again worked with his cameraman of preference Lajos Koltai. The effective and high-calibre cast includes not only Hungarian actors spanning several generations – Sándor Csányi (known from KONTROLL, Cottbus 2004), Erika Mározsán and Karoly Eperjes – but Jiří Menzel and Oleg Tabakov as well. István Szabó himself, by the way, dubbed Menzel into Hungarian.