Blockade (Blokád)

NATIONAL FILM INSTITUTE HUNGARY

1956.

1956. An Eastern European country is fighting for freedom

against the oppressive Soviet Empire. The fight for freedom fails.

Hungary remains under foreign rule.

1990. The Soviet Empire is weakening.

The countries of Eastern Europe hold free elections.

The democratically elected Hungarian prime minister

travels to Moscow to negotiate Hungarian freedom.

I am József Antall and I will be your class teacher.

I am József Antall.

I will be teaching literature and history.

- May I have an aspirin? - Of course.

Is this your first time flying to Moscow?

Yes, and of my own free will!

Let's hope I don't end up like Maléter in Tököl.

Pál Maléter?

When did you take your final exams, dear... your name...?

- Yvette. - Yvette.

Two years ago.

That wasn't that long ago... 1956, remember?

So in 1956...

Your boss is flirting.

- ...Hungary wanted to pull out of the Warsaw Pact...

There was fighting against the Soviets.

The Soviets ensnared Maléter, a military commander...

- ...and they killed him. - He's not flirting, he's teaching.

In Tököl.

- The Soviets won and we're still members of the Warsaw Pact.

Against our will.

So this is my first trip to Moscow

and I'm determined to win this time.

ZOLTÁN SERESS

ATTILA VIDNYÁNSZKY JR.

ZSOLT VÉGH TIBOR GÁSPÁR

ILDIKÓ TÓTH GÁBOR CSŐRE

- Good luck. - Thank you.

Goodbye.

- No "good luck"? - Good luck, Mr. President!

- Uncle Árpi. - Uncle Árpi.

COSTUME DESIGNER TÜNDE KEMENESI

SET DESIGNER TAMÁS PATAKI

COMPOSER MÁRK MOLDVAI

EDITOR LILI MAKK HSE

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY ANDRÁS NAGY HSC

WRITER NORBERT KÖBLI

PRODUCER TAMÁS LAJOS

DIRECTOR ÁDÁM TŐSÉR

BLOCKADE

Where are they taking us?

Siberia.

All I ask is that you don't force it.

- What? - That we want to leave the Warsaw Pact.

- But we do. We've wanted to for thirty-five years.

- Jóska! These are the Russians. Don't rile them up.

- Why? Will they send in the tanks?

May I start?

All I would like to say is

that every time I see you, Mr. Gorbachev,

your eyes are always smiling.

That's how I know you're a good person.

- The president is a writer. - I see.

- My message is more prosaic than that.

You, General Secretary, have mentioned that the Warsaw Pact

needs to be reformed.

We believe it's not reform

but complete revision that it needs.

What do you mean by revision?

Ultimately, its dissolution.

- Are you suggesting that both the Warsaw Pact

and NATO should be dissolved?

I suggest we join NATO together.

Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union.

All of us. Let NATO be a new pan-European security system.

- The Soviet Union and Hungary are connected by a thousand ties.

The defence industry, trade, culture, natural gas, oil.

It would be a mistake to discard all of this.

So either both are dissolved, or neither.

- I know that prestige is important to the Soviet Union.

But if you ended the Warsaw Pact,

it would be less of a loss of prestige than if...

By voluntarily giving up the Warsaw Pact,

we'd send the message that the Soviet Union

can no longer keep even its friends.

- But if friends quit of their own, that message is worse.

- I know of no country that wants to withdraw

from the Warsaw Pact.

But there is such a country.

- I'm certain. - Well...

That country would be on its own.

This will not do, Jóska,

that you don't give a fig about what your president tells you.

- Did I say a word about us withdrawing?

- Did I tell him to apologise? - Why should he?

- For 1956. - Have we won?

- We've driven the first nail into the coffin of the Warsaw Pact.

The question is at what price.

You went to Moscow like this?

I thought it'd go away.

You should've shown this earlier.

- Why? What is it? A lymph node?

- It's as big as a lemon. - Is it malignant?

It must be operated on.

- You see, that's why I didn't come earlier.

You need to have a biopsy.

- I knew you'd want something like this.

Next week?

- September's no good. Local elections.

- October? - I'm off to Washington.

What about when you're back?

I have to make a speech on 23 October.

Emil.

I don't have time to be unwell.

- The second round of the national local elections held on Sunday

was won by the main opposition party,

the Alliance of Free Democrats.

The ruling Hungarian Democratic Forum came second

with 30.3% and Fidesz came third with 23.6%.

- The Hungarian Democratic Forum has lost a battle,

but it'll win the war.

- The US Secretary of Defense says the United States will continue

to deploy troops to the Gulf region.

The latest developments have caused oil prices to rise again

on the international free markets.

- Behind me is the helicopter carrying Hungarian Prime Minister

József Antall and his entourage as they arrive

in the capital of the United States.

- Bush described the visit of the first freely elected

Hungarian prime minister to the US as a historic event.

UNLEADED PETROL

- Seems like the Soviets turned off the oil.

- What do you mean they turned it off?

Good morning.

- No oil is coming from the Russkies.

- Since when? - Midnight.

- Allegedly, it's a malfunction. - How much do we have in reserve?

- Enough for four, five days. - Forty-five?

Four or five.

- If we don't get oil from the Russkies, we must buy some

from Iraq or the Romanians.

- The problem is that they're selling it for dollars.

- And we don't have any. - Let's take out a loan.

The World Bank wouldn't allow it.

The annual deficit could be ten billion.

Russian petrol was cheap, that's why we could sell it underpriced.

But if we buy petrol at the market price...

- We have to make people pay the market price too.

A price increase?

- If we raise the price of petrol, we can maintain the deficit target.

- What's the difference between the official and the market price?

Sixty percent.

- The Czechs have just doubled their price,

and the public swallowed it.

Even sixty percent is a lot.

Thirty now, thirty in January.

I think we should do it in one go.

Because, if we run out of petrol, there will be chaos,

just like in Romania.

- How much time do we need for the transition?

- At least three days, and Tuesday is a public holiday.

- So? Thursday midnight.

In one step, sixty percent.

Laci?

- This is an unprecedented price increase.

We must make people understand,

make them accept that this is necessary.

Balázs, you announce it.

- Prime Minister, you must announce it.

- That won't work. I'll be in hospital from Tuesday to Sunday.

Balázs will deputise. Nothing serious.

Then you must record it.

Shoot it on Tuesday, broadcast it on Wednesday.

Talk to Hankiss.

Thank you.

Countrymen! Hungarians!

The country is in a catastrophic state.

Our technology is wasteful, our vehicle fleet is obsolete.

We consume more than necessary.

We did not inherit any reserves from the previous government,

only debts.

The Soviet Union is not shipping petrol.

As a result of the Gulf War, world market prices have doubled,

causing an emergency in our energy management.

Our political opponents are accusing us...

- Does he mean the Alliance of Free Democrats?

- ...of having bad relations with our Eastern neighbour,

which is why we are not receiving any oil.

I wish to reassure them that in the last few days

neither Czechoslovakia, nor Poland has received

any oil from the Soviet Union.

Is this party propaganda?

- The prime minister is addressing the nation.

How could that be party propaganda?

Petrol prices must be freed from official pricing,

and must be adjusted to the world market price.

This is the only way to avert a crisis.

- This morning, Prime Minister József Antall paid his respects

to the victims of the 1956 revolution

at plot number 301 in the Rákoskeresztúr cemetery.

- I'm not going to be at home this week.