Puppets built to die, hope that refuses to — Hungarian magic realism meets political nightmare.
Buda, 1851. Jeromos Hétszáz, a puppet maker living in Óbuda, and his wife, Óguszta, a childless couple, have given refuge to the orphans of those fallen in the war of liberty or jailed, most recently to Pál Penyige and Borbála Derelye. Overjoyed when the chief of police orders fifty straw puppets, they are distressed on learning that the puppets will be publicly hanged in effigy of Lajos Kossuth and the leaders of the war of liberty.
Production
Straw puppets so tactile you can almost smell them.
Direction
Palásthy turns political horror into folk tale.
Acting
Haumann and Novák: marriage as fortress.
Director
György Palásthy
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kossuth's 1848 revolution was crushed by Habsburg-Russian forces; public hangings of effigies were actual punishments for banned political expression.
The straw puppet becomes triple metaphor: scapegoat, silenced voice, and art that outlives its destruction — the film itself.
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