OLDAS ES KOTE`S

Ambrus, a thirtytwoyearold surgeon, asks to be assisted during an emergency operation by a seventyyearold professor who had a reputation as an elitist. Instead, the professor behaves very well. Ambrus is struck by the human contact with his exteacher. He meanders through the intellectual circles of Budapest and then returns to his home village in order to look for the roots of the crisis he is going through. He meets a young woman. He had been in love with her, but was afraid to defend her from the accusation that she was a descendent of a kulak family. He asks his father to come to Budapest to live with him, but the old man refuses. While he returns to the city, we hear the voice over of Bartok, who tells the legend of the nine children of the hunter who are transformed into deer a Transylvanian legend that served as the basis for his "Cantata profana".

"Miklos Jancso's Oldas és kotés is special. it is a contradictory mix of a definite style and an ideology that is completely different. I think that Jancso's work is worthy of respect also because he works with instruments that are sincerely exhaustive and truly highlevel. It does not matter that he uses two opposite ways of looking at things alternatively. Likewise, it does not matter that he sometimes wants to be a socialist teacher and other times a representative of existentialism. Jancso is coherent to the hilt. He does not waver here and there. In an honest (and naive!) way he works at making a unique alloy of out of what cannot be melted together: socialist ideological requirements and an abstract artistic method." (Péter Rényi, "Népszabadsag", 31/3/1963)

Director: Miklos Jancso.
Screenplay: Miklos Jancso, da una novella di Jozsef Lengyel.
Director of photography: Tamas Somlo.
Art director: Ferenc Ruttka.
Editor: Zoltan Farkas.
Music: Balint Sarosi.
Cast and characters: Zoltan Latinovits (dottor Ambrus Jarom), Miklos Szkatas (capo chirurgo), Andor Ajtay (professor Adam), Béla Barsi (Jarom senior), Gyula Bodrogi (Gyula), Maria Medgyesi (Etus).
Production company: MaFilm (Studio 1), Budapest.