A Hungarian industrialist builds an empire on ambition, then watches it burn. Greed ages like milk.
Set between the First and Second World Wars, a “tale of an industrialist's rise to power and his destruction through his own greed” - BFI.
Acting
Bessenyei's Szabó: charming, then monstrous, then pathetic.
Production
Period detail that smells of coal dust and decaying privilege.
Director
Viktor Gertler
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
1957 Hungarian cinema navigated Soviet censorship; this critique of capitalism was ironically permissible.
Director Viktor Gertler shot this during the brief thaw after the 1956 Revolution—its darkness feels prophetic.
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