Horizon

This study of the contemporary Hungarian generation gap is unfortunately reminiscent of the British social dramas of the early '60s (a sequence from Anderson's If... is included by way of indirect tribute), with the jazz and pop music used reinforcing the period feel: a dance-hall sequence looks like something from early Beatle days. A teenage boy, representative of many his age, rejects all that his parents have fought and been imprisoned for. He drops out of school, quits his job, dreams of nihilism, and ends up working in a factory, the despair of his elders. The film is best at gauging the fundamental confusion that lies behind the boy's facade of toughness (illustrated when he carefully copies an acquaintance's man of the world mannerisms, much to the scorn of his schoolfriends). Coming down on the side of youth, it does invest them with a mobility that contrasts pointedly with the often sedentary older generation. But it is in its assertion that the old has to make way for the new that Horizon flounders. Given his hero's lack of stance, Gábor is left making detailed observations and little else.