María, leyenda húngara

Like Fejos' LONESOME, this film shows a creative imagination combined with an undeveloped story sense and a finite talent. The events in the simple plot are telegraphed, repeated, and told very slowly. Poor Marie, hanging out clothes on the line in the front yard at midnight, is offered candy by the fiance of the lady of the house and, presto, comes the dawn. (Presumably the seduction or rape occurred right in the barren front yard, next to the road.) Marie is cast out, and can find little work. Finally, she finds herself at the door of a tavern frequented by prostitutes, facing the ferocious woman who runs the place. She is given a menial job and finds a family in the girls and a mother-figure in the manager. The character of this woman--strong, hard, inexpressive, but compassionate and just--and the actress who plays her, is by far the most complex and interesting aspect of the film. Marie suffers further at the hands of a group of do-gooders, cardboard figures as Fejos' villains tend to be. Finally she goes to a ridiculous, saccharine, kitschy heaven, where she again finds herself washing the floors. It's hard to know just how much Fejos has his tongue in his cheek with this final sequence. In fact, it's hard to pin Fejos down in general. Much of the time he seems simple-minded, even dull, but then he'll come up with an original visual idea or an unexpectedly well-observed moment or character that makes you think he has something after all.