Written and directed by Gyula Gazdag, a 35-year-old young man at the time, this whistling parallelepiped is a metaphorical exercise that invites you to read between the lines, of an otherwise banal and uninteresting story.
The title alludes to a toy, brought by a French teacher, alluding to the student demonstrations of May 68, in Paris, and is an ironic metaphor of the failed revolution and the triumph of the system (in this case, the capitalist one).
But things are no better in socialist Hungary. A voluntary work camp, with no work to do, reduced to a summer camp with nothing to offer, and three students who decide to work outside the camp, putting an end to idleness, and end up being punished and expelled for indiscipline, is a sign of a systematic crisis.
It's even an ironic argument, which allows us to see a society trapped in rules and empty rituals, with nothing to offer young people, who want work and development. No occupation, no culture, no discipline at all. A mere formal appearance of functioning that hides a desert of ideas and initiatives, an official way of life, as Alexandre O'Neill wrote.
The arrival of the French professor, who brings with him a symbol, albeit a ridiculous one, of May 68 and who even proposes organizing a student revolt, seems to be the missing motto. If in France the streets were tarred to avoid the throwing of cobblestones, in Hungary the roads are still mostly unpaved, says one student.
One looks even sadly at neighboring Czechoslovakia, where the student revolt was put down by Soviet tanks in August 1968.
But the revolt is once again postponed, due to the lack of unity and initiative on the part of the students.
