Hungary, 1971
Length / Feature: 89 minutes
Length / Special features: 42 minutes
2.0 Mono LPCM (48k/16-bit)
Black and white
Original aspect ratio:
1:85:1
Language: Hungarian
Subtitles: English
Blu-Ray: BD50 / 1080p
Region ABC (Region Free)
Blu-Ray RRP: £19.99
Release Date: 19 September 2022
Second Run BD056
Blu-Ray |
|---|
Károly Makk’s beloved, Cannes award-winning gem, based on the autobiographical writings of Tibor Déry, is a meditation on time, memory, love and loss.
Two women – a wife and a mother – await the return of political prisoner János. His elderly mother believes him to be working abroad; his devoted wife knows the painful truth of his absence… and fears she may never see him alive again.
Beautifully played by two giants of Hungarian cinema, Lili Darvas and Mari Törõcsik, the film is a subtle yet powerful exploration of how love sustains life, even in times of fear and uncertainty. Perfectly realised, with luminous cinematography and innovative editing, Makk’s tender masterpiece is a landmark of international cinema.
Presented from a new 4K restoration and for the first time ever on Blu-ray, our edition also contains interviews with the late director, a audio commentary with with Károly Makk and film historian professor Gábor Gelencsér, archival newsreel footage of Hungarian Film Week in Sorrento, 1971 where Love won the major prizes - plus a booklet featuring writing on the film by Graeme Hobbs and Agnes Sajti.
• Love (Szerelem, 1971) presented from a new 4K restoration created by the National Film Institute - Film Archive, Hungary.
• Károly Makk on Love (2005): the renowned filmmaker discusses the film.
• Audio commentary with Károly Makk and professor Gábor Gelencsér (2016).
• ‘Love’ returns to Cannes (2016): a film on the history and legacy of Love.
• Archival newsreel footage of Hungarian film week in Sorrento, 1971.
• Trailers.
• 20-page booklet with writing on the film by Graeme Hobbs
and Agnes Sajti.
• New and improved English subtitle translation.
• World premiere on Blu-ray.
• Region free Blu-ray (A/B/C).
Directed by Károly Makk
Story - Tibor Déry
Screenplay - Péter Bacsó
Cinematography - János Tóth
Original Music - András Mihály
Editor - György Sívó
Production Design - József Romvári
Main Cast
Lili Darvas - Mother
Mari Törõcsik - Luca
Iván Darvas - János
Erzsi Orsolya - Irén
László Mensáros - the Doctor
1971 Cannes Film Festival: Winner, Jury Prize
1971 Cannes Film Festival: Winner, OCIC Award - Károly Makk
“Makk's haunting, atmospheric and beautifully performed film, brilliantly shot by Janos Toth, captures exactly the fear and uncertainty of the time. It is, above all, a treatise on how such times affect fidelity, faith, illusion, love. It deals specifically with Hungary but has an absolutely universal appeal... completely unsentimental, but catches precisely what its characters face and how they feel... an outstanding film.”
Derek Malcolm, 100 Greatest Films
“Its incisive commentary on the lies people had to tell each other as a basic survival mechanism remaining one of the most potent portraits of life under totalitarianism ever filmed”
Michael Brooke, Sight & Sound
“This intense, subtly atmospheric film has literary insights that are well worked into a visual pattern by Makk, all handled with poise, pace and balance” Variety
“A brilliantly powerful film that both captures the sense of dread that comes from living under a totalitarian regime; and expresses the feelings and plight of his characters in a perfectly poetic way” Bonjour Tristesse
“Love is truly one of the gems of the [New York Film] Festival, and I haven't even gotten around to praising the space and imaginatively-handled reconciliation of husband and wife... It says as much, indirectly and non-polemically, about what makes a man do things, and a woman stay home and endure as any film I have ever seen”
Molly Haskell, The Village Voice, October 1972
“Few films have managed such a perfect balance of humanism, political criticism and sorrowful fragile beauty”
Sheila Seacroft, A Seat in the Dark
“A masterpiece” Roger Ebert
