LOVE

Hungary, 1970, 90 minutes, Black and white.
Lili Darvas, Mari Torocsik, Ivan Darvas.
Directed by Karoly Makk.

Love: many films from European Communist countries have a simple beauty in their plain presentation of human beings and genuine emotions - a belief in the value of life lacking in so many Western films. This Hungarian film is like that. An old lady is ageing, then dying, Her daughter-in-law looks after her and loves her. Her husband is in prison on a political charge. He returns home to his wife's love. This really is love and it is certainly what the world needs now. Black and white photography, camera studies of faces and gestures and beautiful performances from the old lady and especially, the daughter-in-law make this a quietly memorable experience.

1. What were the implications of the title of this film? Was it an apt title?

2. What insight into the world of contemporary Hungary did the film give? Was it evident that this was a Hungarian film? What differences were evident in this film from. say, American or English counterparts?

3. Comment on the style and the impact of the black and white photography. The use and the non-use of music.

4. What impression did the old lady make on you, especially during the credits? How did she engage your sympathy? Was she a sympathetic person herself? What happened when you discovered she was a troublesome old lady? That she was a suspicious old lady? Did you still like her? What did you get to know of her from her reminiscences of the past? Why was she so demanding in being looked after? Did she like the daughter-in-law? How was this evident? The old lady's relationship with her maid? The old lady's idealising of her son, that he was in America? How was love represented in the old lady? Were you sorry when she got ill and died?

5. Luka, the daughter-in-law: What kind of a woman was Luka? was she sympathetic? Did you like her? How did the film utilise the actress's face for communicating the tenderness of her love for her mother-in-law? How was the richness of her love manifest in her character? Her relationship to her own mother? To the old lady? The people who rented her flat? To her husband? How was her love so real when you saw her exasperation with her mother-inlaw? and yet her continually going back to look after her? Were you glad when her husband returned home? Why was she hesitant about their reuniting in their love? How happy were you when her husband loved her as formerly? How was the title of the film verified in her character?

6. The husband - what kind of man was he? His principles and his prison sentence? His grief at his mother's death? The impact of the sequences where he returned home and looked around waiting for his wife? How rich were the sequences of his reuniting in love with his wife? How was the title of the film verified in his character?

7. Comment on the maid and her devotion to the old lady.

8. The film was made up of incidents. Which incidents were the most pleasing to you and illustrated the theme of the film?

9. How strong a sense of humanity was there in the film? What message of love did it convey? There was a nostalgia for old times and the hope that love would remain in the modern world. There was sentiment; was it sentimentality?

10. How strong a film of human beauty and optimism was this? What ultimate effect would it have on its audience?