f{"id":40224,"date":"2025-03-13T22:09:42","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T05:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=40224"},"modified":"2025-03-13T22:09:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T05:09:46","slug":"democracy-noir-depicts-hungarys-dark-slide-and-foretells-ours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/democracy-noir-depicts-hungarys-dark-slide-and-foretells-ours\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Democracy Noir\u2019 Depicts Hungary\u2019s Dark Slide \u2014 and Foretells Ours"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Michael Fox<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mar 11, 2025 (KQED.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Donald Trump and Viktor Orb\u00e1n shake hands in a scene from Connie Field’s documentary ‘Democracy Noir,’ playing three nights at the Roxie. (Roxie Theater)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An \u201cevergreen\u201d documentary<\/a>, such as Connie Field and Marilyn Mulford\u2019s Freedom On My Mind<\/em> (1994), is a film whose information and themes are timeless. The Bay Area filmmakers\u2019 Oscar-nominated oral history of the Civil Rights campaign to register Mississippi voters in the early 1960s (currently available to stream on TCM<\/a> and Max<\/a>) will be relevant forever.Two Bay Area Memelords Take on Gentrification in a New Doc<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Field\u2019s latest doc, Democracy Noir<\/a><\/em> (screening March 12, 16 and 17 at the Roxie), about Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s systemic 15-year (and counting) destruction of Hungary\u2019s democracy, derives from the opposite impulse. Although its historical account and snapshot of individual resistance will resonate years down the road, Field\u2019s goal was to have the maximum impact right now, right here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After she premiered Democracy Noir<\/em> at the prominent CPH:DOX festival in Copenhagen a year ago, Field intended the film to play U.S. theaters, alerting uninformed, misinformed and apathetic voters of the stakes of the 2024 election. It didn\u2019t work out that way; the doc screened at festivals in the liberal enclaves of Mill Valley and Boston (and throughout Europe), but didn\u2019t get a wider release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there is a silver lining \u2014 I\u2019m trying very hard to accentuate the positive \u2014 to the vast damage done to the nation\u2019s institutions by Donald Trump and his inside circle of billionaires since his second inauguration, it is that a whole lot more Americans are presumably interested in the autocratic Hungarian precedent on display in Democracy Noir<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nurse Niko Antal and \u2018Democracy Noir\u2019 director Connie Field in Budapest. (Judit Kalmar)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Blending and finessing the past and the present since Orb\u00e1n took office for the second time in 2010, Field traces the chronology of events and the opposition to Orb\u00e1n through a trio of remarkable Hungarian women. Niko Antal, a nurse and the most emotionally vulnerable of the three, is perpetually protesting on the streets while working 18-hour days at minimum wage and paying for patients\u2019 medicine out of her own pocket. You can imagine Antal\u2019s facial expression when her mother, representative of the older generation, says Orb\u00e1n has made her feel more secure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Babette Oroszi, a respected and rising television journalist when she was in her 20s, was compelled to keep finding new venues as the right wing acquired roughly 400 media outlets in the years since Orb\u00e1n came to power. The quiet, lovely home near a scenic waterway that she shares with her wife is a refuge from her stressful job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oroszi investigates and uncovers the regime\u2019s malfeasance, pushing back against a tsunami of misinformation. \u201cThey\u2019ve ruined education, they\u2019ve ruined the health care system, they\u2019ve screwed the . . . pensioners,\u201d she laments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By way of explaining the media environment, Democracy Noir<\/em> depicts the shocking morning when the staff of the country\u2019s largest newspaper, N\u00e9pszabads\u00e1g<\/em>, which reported corruption scandals on a near-daily basis, found the building locked when they arrived for work and were fired almost immediately. Through the concerted flow of propaganda, the government has effectively brainwashed most of the population, mitigating the need for the most palpable sign of repression: calling out the military onto the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s strategies is funneling Hungary\u2019s share of European Union funds to rural areas \u2014 new buildings, improvements in infrastructure and even sacks of potatoes \u2014 while claiming all the credit for his party, Fidesz. The result, unsurprisingly, solidifies Orb\u00e1n\u2019s base of support outside of Budapest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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T\u00edmea Szab\u00f3 blows a whistle in the face of Viktor Orb\u00e1n in the Hungarian Parliament in a scene from \u2018Democracy Noir.\u2019 (Roxie Theater)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Appealing opposition politician T\u00edmea Szab\u00f3, Democracy Noir<\/em>\u2019s third protagonist, recounts recent history to Field\u2019s camera. Her more compelling appearances, though, are on the floor of Parliament delivering impassioned, articulate and clear arguments against Fidesz\u2019s policies. Szab\u00f3 is a beacon of hope, that is, until one notices how empty the chamber is when she speaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democracy Noir<\/em> plays to U.S. viewers as a template for what has come to pass in the U.S., and is rolling out before our eyes. Television and radio networks peddling the state\u2019s version of events, of course, but also the leader (whose power is never in doubt) relentlessly presenting himself and his followers as the victims, surrounded by enemies. And, ominously, the selective targeting of minorities \u2014 refugees, LGBTQ+ people \u2014 as the object of people\u2019s blame, suspicion and hatred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the government hates me so openly,\u201d Oroszi asks, \u201cthen what am I doing here?\u201d The nurse Antal, exhausted by the struggle, says, \u201cI was raised to always fight for my dreams. I don\u2019t have them anymore. Now I\u2019m really just caught on a hamster wheel that I can\u2019t get out of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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