Maria’s Day

On 6 September 1866, members of the Szendrey family meet in celebration of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Present are Ignác Szendrey; his daughter, celebrated writer Júlia, with her second husband, historian Árpád Horvát; her children from her first marriage to missing-presumed-dead Sándor Petőfi, most importantly moribund Zoltán; Júlia’s younger sister Mária with her husband, famed writer Pál Gyulai; and, last but not least, István Petőfi, the national poet’s younger brother.

It will be a day of confrontations over meals, as well as extensive, often volatile discussions leading to resolutions going nowhere, concerning the respective fates of Júlia and Zoltán. Four days later, Mária will be dead, but that’s not part of Maria’s Day. During the film, she’s visibly already on the way – a spectre of a human, violently losing control over the remains of her life. Júlia will follow two years on; then two years later and Zoltán will have passed on, too. Everybody knows so – the characters as well as Hungarian audiences watching this dance of death of one of the nation’s most famous families. Decay and despair permeate every grain of the film. And every reaction against the inevitable is crude, tired, vulgar, needy and only too human at the same time.

– Olaf Möller

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