“The Witness” by Peter Bacsó

During our trip to the Ukraine, we were given the opportunity to view a Hungarian film, “The Witness” by Peter Bacsó, set during the Stalinist period of communism lasting from 1949 until 1956. At the end of World War II, the country faced enormous war damages creating a poor economy and extreme inflation of currency. By 1949, Stalinist communism in Hungary under Mátyás Rákosí came to power. The film was created in 1969 but was not released until 1981. By 1979, Hungary’s new economic reforms and increased liberalism made the release of this film a possibility. Even after its release in 1981, the film could only be seen at one theatre in Budapest originally.

“The Witness” tells the story of József Pelikán who is a dike keeper and member of the communist party. This film has many satirical elements in it. Initially, Pelikán goes to jail for slaughtering his pig. He immediately is bailed out of jail and brought mysteriously to the home of fellow communist, Comrade Virág. Pelikán returns to jail a few times over the course of the film for various absurd reasons. On behalf of the communist party, Virág continuously bails Pelikán out telling him that one day, the communists will ask something of him. Eventually, Pelikán is asked to testify against his friend Zoltán Dániel in a show trial. In show trials, many lesser communists were forced to memorize scripts of trials in which they would testify. The judgment was made before the trial. This was a component of the purges that occurred during the Stalinist period. In fact, one of every four communist party members suffered some form of persecution from 1948 to 1953. More communists died at hands of the communist governments of Eastern Europe than under their inter-war predecessors.

Pelikán was said to have free will but was, in reality, pressured into testifying against his friend Dániel to keep Virág from committing suicide. Over the course of the film, Pelikán becomes consumed with following Virág’s orders and forgets about his former duties. One scene shows Pelikán sitting in a tree practicing his lines for the trial as the water from his dike-keeping duties has flooded his home and surrounding areas. When the trial finally begins, Pelikán decides to take a stand for Dániel and defies Virág. Because of this, he is accused of being an informer and is sentenced to death. In the end, everyone is set free, but many were not so fortunate in reality. The film demonstrated communists’ paranoia and incompetence as they accused many of being traitors and consequently charged those people with ridiculous accusations. I enjoyed being able to see and better understand through this film how Stalinist communism might have been for a party member.

Claire McWilliams