A Nagy generáció (The Great Generation)

Original post date: 1 June 1987
Rating: ✭✭✭✰

In another one of those hooks to draw in Americans, this film has been described as Hungary’s The Big Chill. It is, and it isn’t. It’s been a strange day for Makai, a Budapest disc jockey. One of his oldest friends Nikita (who is married) has borrowed Makai’s apartment for a tryst with a woman. Turns out the woman is Makai’s young wife. After throwing his wife out, Makai is then surprised by the arrival of a very old friend. Rèb left Hungary for the United States 18 years ago. Unfortunately, Rèb hadn’t been able to get a passport because of his wild ways, so he ripped off Makai’s passport and took off with his girlfriend Mari for fame and fortune in the New World, while Makai had to stay behind. Now Rèb is back with his totally Americanized teenage daughter Marylou (named for the Ricky Nelson song). Mari, meanwhile, left him long ago and returned to Hungary where she is married to Nikita (the one having the affair with Makai’s wife). Got all this? Anyway, the movie is kind of fun with some really good bits, including a wild party, of which we only get to see the aftermath, a quixotic quest for a farmer/inventor who leaves brimming harvests everywhere he goes, and lessons in neurosis for Makai’s teenage son so he can avoid the draft. The musical score is wistful and jazzy, and the story makes it clear that baby boomer middle-age shock is not strictly an American phenomenon.

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