REEES Film Series: The Witness (dir. Péter Bacsó, 1969)

A simple, well-meaning dike-keeper and WWII veteran is unexpectedly arrested for illegally slaughtering his family pig. Instead of being imprisoned, he is mysteriously plucked from jail by a shadowy state official and promoted through a series of increasingly absurd positions, from running a swimming pool to directing the State Orange Research Institute. Eventually, he realizes that his series of promotions was orchestrated for one purpose: to serve as the key witness in a rigged political show trial against a former comrade.

Deploying biting satire to lay bare the paranoid absurdity of Stalinist political purges, the film balances dark political thriller aesthetics with farce, framing its protagonist as an innocent broad-daylight fool caught in an intricate web of state-mandated lies.

Suppressed by Hungarian censors for over a decade, The Witness is a hilariously cynical satire of Eastern Bloc show trials and political paranoia.

More info about the Film Series