Amerikai Anzix (American Postcard) (1975) by Gabor Body
Sunday, November 4, 1984, 8:00 pm
The Other Side: European Avant-Garde Cinema 1960-1980
Program IV: Hungary
The Other Side surveys and celebrates 20 years of Europe’s longest and most fertile period of avant-garde filmmaking, from 1960-1980. In collaboration with the Pacific Film Archive, this 10-part series features many films never before seen in the U.S. Five of the programs will be shown at P.F.A. and the remaining five at the Cinematheque. This series was guest- curated by critic Regina Cornwall.
Amerikai Anzix (American Postcard), Gabor Body (1975). This film about three Hungarian officers on the Union Side of the American Civil War is anything but a straightforward war or adventure story. A first feature by Hungary’s Gabor Body, it was made under the rubric of experiment at the Béla Balázs Studio, and was cited as Best Film By A New Director at the Mannheim Festival. In American Postcard, Body treats a number of issues: history, historic reconstruction, Hungary and its myths and dreams, the process of representation, visual perception, and film and the qualities of film itself. Such techniques throw into question “the history we hear of as truth’ by presenting history as something we know (and see) to be constructed from multiple points of view.” The script is based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce.