The Exam Directed by Péter Bergendy

After a long career in TV commercials and the successful debut feature Stop Mom Teresa! (Állítsátok meg Terézanyut!), director Péter Bergendy turns his eye to Hungarian history, creating an intimate piece where the espionage plot is only a pretext for a more complex story of trust and betrayal.

In late 1956, Budapest was boiling with turmoil after a student demonstration inspired a wider uprising against the Soviet policies imposed by then-ruling Communist Party, only to be crushed in less than a month. After these events, you would assume that the Secret Police had loads of work on their hands keeping an eye on anti-Communists, but Bergendy’s The Exam plays with the idea that the organisation needed to test their own people’s loyalty as well.

As Christmas 1957 approaches, one man seems untouched by the warm and fuzzy holiday mood. András Jung is a young agent posing as a lonely teacher who gives private language lessons in his small apartment: the perfect cover-up for receiving all sorts of visitors all day. What he doesn’t know is that his mentor, superior and only friend Markó Pál and a small team follow his every move. However, this film has a lot of surprises for us, and no random act of kindness or innocent glance is what it seems.

What impresses you first in The Exam is the visual style: Bergendy knows exactly what details to show to let the Christmas frenzy sneak in, or to cast the spell of doubt on a character, and director of photography Zsolt Tóth fits them all within a coherent film noir style, all in a captivating reconstruction of the fifties that will leave any retro nostalgic longing for more. Perhaps the background music is a bit too much at times, but that is merely a detail.

Despite its stylistic merits, The Exam’s greatest accomplishment lays somewhere else: Péter Bergendy has the ability to send out a clever statement in a mainstream-friendly way and show how Communism has taught people to never trust their peers. A legacy that former Communist countries will only be able to let go of after a couple of generations.

By Andreea Dobre