The Upthrown Stone
by Sándor Sára1h241968Hungary
Collection Between Fiction and DocumentaryA film of loosely connected episodes and a ballad-like atmosphere records Hungarian peasant life in the fifties and the sixties through the story of young Pásztor Balázs. His innocent father is imprisoned in the fifties and thus Balázs, who wants to be a film director, is not admitted to film academy. He is employed in a co-operative as a land-surveyor. While he is organising a farming centre with his friend, Iliász, a Greek partisan, the local leaders force the men to join the co-operative. The angry women blame the uncompromising Iliász and beat him to death. Balázs is then at a Gypsy camp, where he can see how the authorities of cultural supremacy tread on human rights. He takes shocking photos of the decontamination squad's operation.