安基·维拉

Angi Vera is historically important because its production reflected the loosening of the Soviet Union's control of Eastern Europe that would conclude ten years later with the fall of the Berlin Wall. That Hungary would even consider state sponsorship of such a subversive film was evidence of serious rust on the Iron Curtain, and that the film was completed and distributed throughout Europe presaged the political upheaval that would eventually unfold. The film itself, perhaps unavoidably, is less interesting than what it represented. Its primary theme is personal emotions vs. duty to the state, and its conclusions reaffirm the importance of being an individual and emphasize that personal identity ceases to be meaningful when derived from ambition or pure adherence to the will of the state. Angi Vera won awards at eight film festivals, including the International Critics' Prize at Cannes in 1979. In its day, it was shocking for its penetrating indictment of the communist system, since it came from a communist-run country and was, indeed, financed by the state film agency of that country. In the story, a teenaged girl comes under the intense tutelage of the Communist Party in 1948 and changes from a high-minded idealist bent on rooting out corruption to a party apparatchik who is prepared to sacrifice her lovers and friends to maintain her standing within the party's hierarchy.