The Fifth Seal

The Fifth Seal (Hungarian: Az ötödik pecsét) is a 1976 film by Hungarian director Zoltán Fábri based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Hungarian author Ferenc Sánta. It won the Golden Prize at the 10th Moscow International Film Festival^[1] and it was entered into the 27th Berlin International Film Festival. The film was also selected as the Hungarian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 49th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.^[2]

Plot[]

During the lead of the Arrow Cross Party in World War 2 four friends and a wounded photographer who has just come back from the battlefront are chatting around the table of a bar. One of them, a watchmaker named Miklós Gyuricza poses a moral question to the joiner called János Kovács about Tomóceusz Katatiki and Gyugyu.

Tomóceusz Katatiki was the leader of an imaginary island and Gyugyu was his slave. The powerful and careless Katatiki treated the poor Gyugyu with extreme brutality, but never felt any remorse as he lived by the barbarian morality of his age. Gyugyu lived in eternal misery and suffering but found sedation in the fact that whatever cruelty happens to him it is never caused by him and he is still a clean, guiltless person. What would he choose, if he had to die and reincarnate as one of them?

The photographer says that he would choose Gyugyu, but the others don't believe him, so as revenge, he later reports to the Arrow Cross Party that the four of them called them murderers. As they go home we get to know some of the deepest secrets of their lives. It turns out that Gyuricza is hiding Jewish children at his flat. The next evening they are taken to an office of the party where the unnamed arrow-cross man played by Zoltán Latinovits forces them to slap a dying partisan in the face.

Cast[]

• Lajos Őze - Miklós Gyuricza (Gyuricza Miklós)
• László Márkus - László Király (Király László)
• - Béla
• - János Kovács (Kovács János)
• István Dégi - Károly Keszei (Keszei Károly)
• Zoltán Latinovits - civvies
• - the blonde one
• - the high one
• - Macák
• - Mrs Kovács (Kovácsné)
• Ildikó Pécsi - Irén
• Marianna Moór - Lucy (as Moór Mariann)
• - Erzsi
• György Cserhalmi - dying communist
• - Guard
• - Gyuricza's daughter

See also[]

• List of submissions to the 49th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Hungarian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

References[]

External links[]

• The Fifth Seal at IMDb

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