Music Box (1989)

This is a fantastic film. I live here in Budapest where part of the story is told. From what I have learned by talking to many people who witnessed the events of the 1956 Revolution, this film accurately depicts the situation, as grim as it is. This was the type of things that really happened. In this film you are spared the gory details, but what is told and the photos that are shown are vivid enough. The buildings on the street where I live today are riddled with pock marks from machine guns. I was here between 90 and 95 just after the country shed communism and witnessed the suspicion on the people's faces on the public transportation. Today (2005), since my return to Budapest, I have found the society to be much different, although the effects of communism can still be seen. People are not so suspicious, although many of those who lived through that horrifying time (late '40s well into the 'mid '50s), still believe that the secret police are a part of the system. This is the degree to which it effected the people. I have been to the places where evil things took place. I was here before the statues of Lenin and Stalin were removed, before the red star was removed from the Parliament, when the Soviet soldiers were still here. Creepy! If you want to know what the history of Hungary was like during this time, you MUST see this film. It is chillingly accurate to history.

Fmovies: This film is of course a dangerous experiment with ingredients like: a court drama, holocaust 40 years after and absolute no action at all. But because of the great performances by the actors, it ends up as a deeply moving experience.

And at the very center, Jessica Lange does a tremendous job as the lawyer and daughter of a Hungarian war criminal - or is he? She appears in almost every picture of the film, and I find her very convincing in her emotional ups and downs throughout. She does it with no glamour, but alone her incredible personality.

Most of the other actors does a great job as well, and the only reason for not voting it in top is, that the plot is not too convincing - but it first became obvious some time after I watched the film, simply because of the fine acting.

I voted 9/10.

The movie is based on the case of the alleged war criminal John Demjanjuk whose American citizenship was revoked and he was extradited to Israel for trial. In Israel, he finally was acquitted for lack of evidence. In the movie Costa-Gavras does have a strong opinion about the case, but in real life the all-important question "guilty or not guilty" was never answered properly.

A good movie, too good to stay in the cinemas for a long time.

Music Box fmovies. The movie focuses on two universal questions-do we actually know people we believe we do,including close ones,and does productive and outwardly respected life erase or diminish a past of hineous and sadistic crimes. I find the acting in the movie,including in the supporting roles,powerful.The courtroom scenes,with victims confronting a Hungarian ex SS man,deeply moving,and far from any cliche. worth noting is the senior lawyer,uttering his views about the holocaust to his grandson.One wonders what it will take to disrupt his aloof equanimity. I think that the movie has unique value,in light of the proliferation of the holocaust deniers,practitioners of historiographic hooliganism,by doing its part in telling us what happened.

Excellent performances by Armin Mueller-Stahl and Jessica Lange (and even Michael Rooker in a thankless role) make "The Music Box" well-worth seeing (and seeing again). I also appreciated Costa-Gavras's establishing shots such as the dizzying image in a large building as Lazlo and his daughter go up an elevator to meet with federal prosecutors, pigeons on the window sill of the court room, etc. I liked the way Chicago and Budapest are used in the movie as two poles of the story. It is true that a few things do not make sense. Ann Talbot (Lange) accuses the US prosecutor (Frederick Forest) of letting the Hungarian government dictate his case, and the US does seem to rely entirely on Hungarian evidence, never bothering to look for any evidence west of Budapest. There is something to be said, however, for the suspension of disbelief. If the US prosecutors were not so incompetent, then it would not be entirely up to Talbot, the moral center of the movie, to uncover the truth and carry the responsibility for it entirely by herself. It is, by the way, the Hungarians and not the Russians whom Lazlo accuses of trying to frame him.

Awright, I don't approve of all your politics, Mr. Costa Gavras, particularly in "State of Siege" and "Hanna K.", but in this one you truly excel, both in terms of authenticity and a willingness to stay unprovocative when dealing with a sensitive issue as the Holocaust.

The movie is supposed to have been inspired by the real-life case of John Demjanjuk, an Ohio resident accused of war crimes at Treblinka and Sobibor, extradited to Israel for trial in the mid 80's. The movie even has a brief reference to this Demjanjuk guy when someone tries to pronounce his complicated last name in a conversation with Jessica Lange. Costa Gavras seems to be intrigued by our very perception of the Holocaust and our ambivalent approach toward it. Lawyer Ann Talbot's Hungarian-born father is accused of war crimes, her ex-father-in-law is somewhat scornful towards the inviolability of the Holocaust, and even had drinks with "those monsters" when the West used ex-Nazis as spies against Communism. Not to mention the difficulty of prosecuting war crimes 40 odd years later when justice can be won by either concocted evidence or the cunning of legal argument, and historical truth becomes less important.

The courtroom scenes and dialogues are truly remarkable in their restraint, and give the viewer just enough background as is needed about the atrocities of Arrow Cross in Hungary between 1944 and 1945. Specially the testimony of one Mr. Bodai is awesome, that of man so much ravaged by horror that his delivery is almost a monotone, with little emotional difference between responding a "yes" and a "no".

But it is Jessica Lange that outshines everyone else in performance, may be one of her best ever.