JUST THE WIND / CSAK A SZEL
Hungary, 2012, 91 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Bence Fliegauf.
A brief film about Hungarian prejudice against gypsies. The film says it is not a documentary about the recent attacks by local Hungarians in which quite a number of gypsies were injured and six were killed. Up to the making of the film, there had been no definite charges laid.
Basically, the film is a story in the quite humdrum lives of a gypsy family who live at the edge of a country town. Mother wakes early and feeds her ageing father. The daughter gets up and prepares for school which she likes. Her younger brother gets up late, skips school and wanders the countryside, going especially to his hidden cache of things he finds.
Mother has different jobs, scything public areas of long grass, doing menial cleaning. She is harassed on the way home. The daughter suffers insinuations from a teacher, but enjoys an afternoon near a lake. So does the son. Eventually, they are at home, go to bed. They hear noises in the night – and the family is attacked violently.
This is very plain, matter-of-fact film-making, almost documentary-like. While it is not exciting, deliberately so, it is a very worthy film, exposing bigotry against the gypsies which can boil up into violence, and asking for some sympathy and understanding for people who are targets of xenophobia.
1. The initial information about the crimes against the gypsies in 2009? The casualties, the deaths? The film as a story based on imagination about these events rather than a documentary?
2. The Hungarian countryside, the sense of location, the fields, the gypsy houses, the town, the school, the workplaces? Authentic realism? The musical score?
3. The title, its reference at the end – and the irony of the men coming to kill the family?
4. The opening, Rio and his walking through the fields, passing the funeral – anticipation of what was to happen?
5. The portrait of the family: the mother, getting up early in the morning, dressing, cooking the meal for her father, the cigarettes, going to work, mowing the grass, cleaning the school, the menial jobs? Her walking home? Her being accosted? The young girl, getting up, going to school, her sense of responsibility? At school, the comments of the teacher, her work on Lamguage and computers? The accusation about the computer parts being stolen? The afternoon, relaxing, with the little girl, collecting the flowers, making the crown of flowers? Rio and his not going to school, wandering, meeting the boys, his hideout, all that he had collected? The young man finding the hideout? Secrecy? Going for the swim? His sister and the men concerned about her, checking whether she had a mobile phone and keeping it on? The old man, wandering out of the house, his daughter bringing him back home? The ordinariness of the family – and the humdrum nature of their lives?
6. The local prejudice, against gypsies, against foreigners? Standover tactics, the bullying attitude?
7. The sense of menace? The family going to bed, hearing sounds, considering that it was just the wind?
8. The sudden attack, the panic, the men and their shooting?
9. The bodies at the morgue, their being tended, the many wounds, their being dressed for their funeral? Taken in the coffins? The mother, her father, the daughter? Rio absent?
10. The presentation of the gypsies, their trying to settle, settle in? The hostility towards alien people, erupting into violence?
