BERLIN -- "Sweet Emma, Dear Boebe'' (Edes Emma, Draga Boebe), Istvan Szabo's low-budget Hungarian entry at the Berlinale, cost less than $500,000 to make. A David Puttnam disciple, the director of "Meeting Venus'' set out to prove that quality productions in Europe can be made for a fraction of what they cost in the American studio system.
The story of two underpaid schoolteachers from the provinces, Emma (played by Dutch actress Johanna ter Steege) and Boebe (Erniko Borcsok), "Sweet Emma'' chronicles with chapter-heading intertitles their lives and hard times in a Budapest that is shifting dramatically from a Communist past to a capitalist present and still unforeseeable future.
The plus side of this intriguing film chronicle is how Szabo mercilessly takes the pulse of Hungarian society today. Indeed, the picture he presents is dark and pessimistic -- the schoolteachers are barely paid a living wage while forced to share a room in a state-run hostel on the edge of the city.
The minus side is Szabo's reluctance to dig below the surface of the tale and offer something more than just what the boulevard press has been reporting nearly every day in Budapest. Outside of the extraordinary performance given by ter Steege as Emma, there's not much else to chew on psychologically.
Since Emma and Boebe were trained to be Russian teachers, they now have to learn smatterings of English at night school to stumble through their own classes on the same in a crowded classroom the next morning. At the same time, Emma longs for sexual fulfillment in a demeaning relationship with her school principal, a pain that's doubled by having an aged mother lying ill in a hospital bed.
As for Boebe, she's seduced into joining a private bordello that's run by "foreigner investors'' in the city. When she's arrested by the police and the truth comes out, she's fired from her job at the school and thrown out of the hostel.
She commits suicide -- and Emma's nerves then crack. She ends up losing her job, too, and is reduced to selling newspapers at the railway station to make a living.
Winner of the Special Jury prize at the Berlinale, "Sweet Emma, Dear Boebe'' scores as a compelling, uncompromising drama of life and times in Budapest today, as seen through the eyes of two struggling young teachers from the provinces. It's Szabo's best film since his Oscar-winning "Mephiso'' a decade ago.
SWEET EMMA, DEAR BOEBE
(EDES EMMA, DRAGA BOEBE)
(Hungarian-German)
Objektiv Film Studio (Budapest), in co-production with Manfred Durniok Produktion
fuer Film und Fernsehen (Berlin)
Producer Manfred Durniok
Director-screenwriter Istvan Szabo
Director of photography Lajos Koltai
Art director Attila Kovacs
Editor Eszter Kovacs
Music Tibor Bornai, Mihaly Moricz, Ferenc Nagy, Beatrice, Robert Schumann
Color
Cast:
Emma Johanna ter Steege
Boebe Erniko Borczok
Stefanics Peter Andorai
Sleepy Eva Kerekes
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
The story of two underpaid schoolteachers from the provinces, Emma (played by Dutch actress Johanna ter Steege) and Boebe (Erniko Borcsok), "Sweet Emma'' chronicles with chapter-heading intertitles their lives and hard times in a Budapest that is shifting dramatically from a Communist past to a capitalist present and still unforeseeable future.
The plus side of this intriguing film chronicle is how Szabo mercilessly takes the pulse of Hungarian society today. Indeed, the picture he presents is dark and pessimistic -- the schoolteachers are barely paid a living wage while forced to share a room in a state-run hostel on the edge of the city.
The minus side is Szabo's reluctance to dig below the surface of the tale and offer something more than just what the boulevard press has been reporting nearly every day in Budapest. Outside of the extraordinary performance given by ter Steege as Emma, there's not much else to chew on psychologically.
Since Emma and Boebe were trained to be Russian teachers, they now have to learn smatterings of English at night school to stumble through their own classes on the same in a crowded classroom the next morning. At the same time, Emma longs for sexual fulfillment in a demeaning relationship with her school principal, a pain that's doubled by having an aged mother lying ill in a hospital bed.
As for Boebe, she's seduced into joining a private bordello that's run by "foreigner investors'' in the city. When she's arrested by the police and the truth comes out, she's fired from her job at the school and thrown out of the hostel.
She commits suicide -- and Emma's nerves then crack. She ends up losing her job, too, and is reduced to selling newspapers at the railway station to make a living.
Winner of the Special Jury prize at the Berlinale, "Sweet Emma, Dear Boebe'' scores as a compelling, uncompromising drama of life and times in Budapest today, as seen through the eyes of two struggling young teachers from the provinces. It's Szabo's best film since his Oscar-winning "Mephiso'' a decade ago.
SWEET EMMA, DEAR BOEBE
(EDES EMMA, DRAGA BOEBE)
(Hungarian-German)
Objektiv Film Studio (Budapest), in co-production with Manfred Durniok Produktion
fuer Film und Fernsehen (Berlin)
Producer Manfred Durniok
Director-screenwriter Istvan Szabo
Director of photography Lajos Koltai
Art director Attila Kovacs
Editor Eszter Kovacs
Music Tibor Bornai, Mihaly Moricz, Ferenc Nagy, Beatrice, Robert Schumann
Color
Cast:
Emma Johanna ter Steege
Boebe Erniko Borczok
Stefanics Peter Andorai
Sleepy Eva Kerekes
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 2/25/1992
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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