Merry-Go-Round (1956) Romeo and Juliet in Communist Hungary (Review)

Released this week as part of Second Run’s Hungarian Masters limited edition three disc Blu-ray (see m’colleagues reviews on this site for the other two films in the set), Merry-Go-Round, or to give it its original Hungarian title Körhinta, is rightly held up as one of the finest achievements in cinema from that country, voted the eighth best Hungarian film by a jury of filmmakers and journalists in 2000. Directed by Zoltán Fábri, this much loved film is essentially Romeo and Juliet transferred to the Communist farming collectives of post-war Hungary. It stars Imre Soós and Mari Törőcsik as our star-crossed lovers, an idealistic and passionate young co-operative farmer and the daughter of a boorish private smallholder who vehemently disapproves of their union.

As with all the satellite Soviet countries in this period, the cinematic arts were deemed a useful tool in terms of Communist propaganda. As a result, much of the output from these Eastern European film industries belonged to the school of socialist realism, extolling the virtues of solidarity and collective enterprise inherent within the Communist system as being far more rewarding than the Capitalist way of life in the West. Many of these films were little more than socialist tracts and dreary dogma, fantasies of a utopia that, to the audiences who lived the reality of life under Stalin and Khrushchev, would appear not only alien but also pretty laughable – if they ever dared to show such mocking contempt in public. To read the basic premise of Merry-Go-Round alone and to note that its star, Imre Soós, was already, at just twenty-six an established poster boy for such movies, you would perhaps be inclined to think that Zoltán Fábri’s film was more of the same. You’d be wrong. 1956 was a very different year for Hungary, after all.

1956 saw Hungary desiring great change in its society. Stalin was three years dead and his successor, Khrushchev had, in February of that year, delivered his ‘Secret Speech’ denouncing the crimes of the former premier and General Secretary. Hungarian politician Imre Nagy believed that a new course of socialism was required in its wake and set about reforming the more hard-line elements of the Soviet-backed regime, winning him much admiration and acclaim – but also many enemies. Chief among those foes was the General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party and de facto leader of the nation. Mátyás Rákosi, the self-styled ‘Greatest Disciple’ of Stalin. Nagy’s popularity at home forced Russia into removing Rákosi from office, replacing him equally hard-line second in command Ernő Gerő. Needless to say, it was not a transition that appealed to the Hungarian people seeking reforms. On the 23rd October, students and workers took to the streets to proclaim their support for Nagy who, fearful that their calls would meet with extreme disapproval from Russia, instructed them to return home. When his appeal for calm fell on deaf ears, the Hungarian army was called in to disperse the demonstrators. However this military intervention proved unsuccessful from Gerő’s point of view as the soldiers ultimately sided with the people. The Hungarian Uprising had begun and Soviet troops were quickly sent in to quell the unrest.

After a couple of days of fighting, Nagy had outmanoeuvred the hard-liners to the point that Gerő and those loyal to him left for Russia. With the reformation of the government at hand, Nagy negotiated a ceasefire between the rebels and the Soviet troops and, on October 30th, announced Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. By November 3rd, Nagy formed a new government, a coalition made up of Communists, Social Democrats, the Independent Smallholders’ Party and the Peasants’ Party. It governed for less than a day. Incensed by Nagy’s actions, Russia went on the attack with Khrushchev’s Operation Whirlwind, a large-scale military invasion on Budapest and other rebel strongholds across the country. Fearing casualties and death tool, Nagy urgently instructed his people not to resist the invaders and fled to the Yugoslav embassy where he sought sanctuary alongside many of his loyal followers. Despite the promise of safe passage, Nagy was arrested, incarcerated and tried by his Soviet masters with a charge of treason. He was hanged in June, 1958 – his trial and execution not revealed to the people until after it had been carried out.

Made in 1956, Merry-Go-Round exemplifies both the demand and the optimism for change. Based on a short story by Imre Sarkadi, it is a typical, old-as-time tale of forbidden love that is brought anew by the rural backdrop of Hungary, a predominantly agricultural country, and the turbulent changes in the air. It is a film that pits collectivism against private enterprise, using its characters to depict the opposing arguments but never in a way that resorts to political mouthpieces for empty slogans. Béla Barsi who plays István, the stubborn father of Mari, our heroine (Mari Törőcsik) is, it could be argued, inspired by Nagy, whose reforms led to the scrapping of Stalinist forced co-operative farming measures. Deciding to turn his back on collectivism, István becomes a private smallholder and sets into motion a plan to increase the size of his holding by incorporating the land of neighbouring smallholder, Sándor, played by Ádám Szirtes. To achieve this ambition, István proposes an arranged marriage between his daughter and the older man, without her consent or even consultation. The fly in the ointment is of course Máté, Imre Soós’ fierce advocate of the collective principle and for whom Mari has set her heart upon. Again, on the surface this sounds like a narrative that would gain Soviet approval; discrediting as it does free enterprise and Nagy’s reforms on farming, whilst placing the co-operative worker at the forefront of the drama as its romantic hero. But there’s much more going on in Fábri’s movie that may have not registered in the Soviet censor’s mind. Máté is a deeply passionate proponent of co-operative farming, but his ire is often directed at his fellow farmers, who he finds incompetent and lazy – a world away from the strong-armed worker heroes that propaganda usually depicted. István may be the villain of the piece for his opposition to the romance between his daughter and Máté, but this feels like a metaphor for the hardships and lack of freedoms faced by Hungarians under the Soviet regime – under a dictatorship can you even be free to love the person your heart desires?

The decision to depict fully three dimensional complex human characters as opposed to stereotypical cardboard cut-outs spouting pure propaganda was an opportunity that the film’s male lead, Imre Soós arguably seized with both hands. As mentioned earlier, Soós was an established star of the Hungarian socialist realist genre, appearing in films with such notably propagandist titles as Singing Makes Life Beautiful from 1950 and the previous year’s Lúdas Matyi, an adaptation of a Hungarian poem and folk-tale concerning a peasant boy who, following a lashing from the local aristocrat, is victorious in repaying his punishment three times over – a story that was naturally seized upon by Communist propaganda cinema as proof that the worker is superior to the master. This screen persona of the worker hero was one which sat uncomfortably with Soós, the eighth child from a family of peasant farmers not unlike the characters depicted on screen, because he had routinely suffered from the rigid parameters of the Communist regime. His first disappointment came in 1952 when, despite being lauded by the authorities who recognised that this Communist poster boy was a key weapon in winning and maintaining the hearts and minds of the Hungarian people, the very same authorities denied him the opportunity to work with the Mádach Theatre, preferring he work at the state-approved Csokonai Imre Theatre in Debrecen instead. When he eventually did get his wish granted to work at his first choice in 1955, he found he was only allowed to play certain roles that were in keeping with the image the authorities wished him to project. In 1956, Soós endured a further, more personal blow when the authorities refused to grant him a travel permit to visit his lover, the actress Violetta Ferrari, who had, by this stage, left Hungary for West Germany, via Vienna. A reunion at the Moscow World Festival of Youth the following year was also scotched too. Merry-Go-Round proved to be an excellent vehicle for the young star, one which was well received internationally, especially in France.

With his natural saturnine good looks and expressive eyes beneath black beetle brows, Soós was a commanding presence whom the camera clearly loved. He is perfect in the role of the idealistic, passionate and hot-headed youth who refuses to give up on Mari without a fight and fittingly it was he kind of role Soós was now familiar with, having played Romeo on stage in Debrecen around the time he made this film. Unfortunately, and despite its success, Merry-Go-Round marked the beginning of the end for Soós. Struggling to juggle his personal life with the image he was forced to project, the actor attempted suicide. Whilst in hospital, Soós fell for his doctor, Hedvig Perjési, and the pair married in the spring of 1957. What should have been an upturn in the actor’s fortunes was not to be when, just a few weeks after their wedding day, husband and wife were found dead on June 20th. A joint suicide was suspected but the circumstances leading up to their fates remains murky and unclear with significant details such as Soós scratching the wall until his fingernails bled point to tragic accident or even foul play. Whatever the truth, the fact remains that his was a life and career cut down prematurely aged just 27. Watching Merry-Go-Round, it’s somewhat inevitable to wonder what could have laid in store for the actor had he lived. Perhaps he would have gone on to become a significant hero figure for his nation’s youth and, like that other ‘satellite state’ star whose life was all too short, Zbigniew Cybulski aka ‘the Polish James Dean’, his fame would have seen him compared to the young stars of Hollywood.

In contrast to the film’s leading man, the role of Mari was given to a complete unknown. Mari Törőcsik was a young student plucked from drama school by Fábri and catapulted to fame as a result of her starring role in Merry-Go-Round. Like the makers of Gone with the Wind, the director had endured a mammoth task in finding his Mari, auditioning over a hundred actresses for the role. In Törőcsik he struck gold, as evinced by their enduring partnership in several other movies that followed. The radiant young actress had absolutely the right qualities for the part, girl next door looks that could become luminous beauty, her face a picture of innocence and vulnerability yet also convey her character’s indefatigable determination and the core of steel necessary to go against her father’s wishes and repel the advances of the unsuitable suitor, Sándor. If, as we reflect, Soós career ought to have turned a corner after Merry-Go-Round, we must take consolation that fame did not at least elude Törőcsik, who enjoyed a lengthy popular career in her native Hungary right up until her death in April this year at the age of 85.

Away from the emotional engagement of the narrative, Merry-Go-Round also succeeds on a technical level as a great cinematic accomplishment. Fábri was determined to break new ground and pull out all the stops in bringing his vision for the piece to life. In this regard, we must make special mention of the incredible merry-go-round sequence and its later echo in the wedding dance scene. To capture the dizzying spectacle of his young lovers on the eponymous fairground ride, Fábri refused all suggestions of fudging the moment in the studio and instead took a handheld camera and positioned himself somewhat precariously on top of a board-like structure which was attached by a series of chains to the centre of the merry-go-round itself, which had been specially erected for the movie. What the director captured after three days of shooting perched right there is nothing short of astonishing and exhilarating and remains an iconic moment in Eastern European cinema. Not content with achieving the seemingly impossible, Fábri employed a rapid editing style to lend the sequence even greater pace that was a world away from the dreariness of his fellow filmmakers at the time.

His editing really is remarkable and provides a visual motif that is continued and enhanced when the lovers defy, from under their noses, István and Sándor at the wedding party later, by dancing together to a frenetic tune. As Máté spins Mari around over and over in his hands and she gazes with exhilaration and adoration into his burning eyes, the audience is compelled to remember the similarly kinetic, circular sequence which started their romance. When the dancing stops and the deathly silence of barely constrained anger greets it, there’s a moment where you can see the steam coming off their bodies, mingling with the cigarette smoke rising to the ceiling. I cannot praise Fábri’s eye enough really; along with his cinematographer Barnabás Hegyi, he was one of the first to move away from the sharp focus, flat lighting style of socialist realism to use soft focus, and overall he seems to be heavily influenced by the great filmmakers of the silent era when it comes to composition. It really is exquisite, and this is the best Hungarian movie I have seen. Eighth place my arse.

Second Run have once again delivered the good with this Blu-ray premiere of Merry-Go-Round, with a new 4K restoration from a HD transfer by the Hungarian Film Institute and a new and improved English subtitle translation. Extras include a featurette in which director István Szabó – whose 1999 film Sunshine gave a role to Mari Törőcsik – discusses the career and legacy of Fábri, and rare screen tests for the film too. As ever, the release is accompanied by an in-depth booklet with new writing on the film.

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THANK YOU FOR READING MARK’S REVIEW OF MERRY-GO-ROUND (1956)