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Daily Nebraskan
Monday, February 7, 1983
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Hie character Virag contemplates suicide in a scene from 'The Witness.
By Eric Peterson
A dikekeeper who wants to mind his
own business is the main character of a
fine satire on the ways of abureaucracy
of terror. "The Witness," a Hungarian film
by Peter Basco, ends tonight at the
Sheldon Film Theater; screenings are at
7 and 9.
The film is a lot like Franz Kafka's
Tlie Trial; there are the same inexplicable
Film Review
charges and reprieves - above all there is
the same ironic wit.
The tone of the film is established at
the very begininng with some scenes of the
dikekeeper Jozsef Pelikan where he should
and wants to be in the country, with his
dog, doing his work. The colors of the
sky and the Danube are muted and beauti
ful. His dog runs to a slogan carved in the
earth "Long live our great and wise
leader," and pisses on it.
He doesn't know it, but Pelikan has al
ready been marked by Fate - or by the
bureaucracy, which here amounts to the
same thing - for something different:
He is to be the star witness against a former
comrade accused of treason.
"Not even if you crucify me!" he yells
when he is first approached with the
idea.
The pelican, which according to legend
would pierce itself in order to feed its
young with its own blood, is an old symbol
of Christ's sacrifice. And the bureaucracy
doesn't hesitate tp accept the sacrifice of
its own Pelikan.
The film is set in 1949, when food was
scarce in Hungary, and Pelikan regretfully
Fogbound " Nielsen still asking
Who won the Super lowlf
By Pat Clark
Last week: Spinoff, a member of the
Video Nostra, was unable to give Niel
sen an explanation of the goals of the
little-known TV-terrorist organization.
Nielsen missed his first Super Bowl tele
cast since the inception of the annual
football-and-hype extravaganza, as he my
steriously fell sound asleep after eating a
TV dinner prepared by Spinoff.
In a vaguely related item, the rest of
the Nielsen family has divined that Niel
sen is missing. They put the search for him
in the hands of the three big commercial
television networks.
The Scene: St. Dinista Hospital and
Video Game Arcade. Spinoff has taken
Nielsen to this staid medical arts palace
after the untimely and suspicious-looking
sleeping spell that overcame Nielsen
during the Super Bowl pre-game show.
"Hsprbwlstdyeh?" the groggy Nielsen
said between yawns. Even in his fogbound
state, he realized that nobody would
Television
understand whatever it was that he had
just said. He could tell his mind was
getting clearer by the second, though,
and in the meantime he guessed he could
play it by ear.
He could see that there were two people
hovering over him. One was Spinoff, and
the other was blocking his view of the
television set. He guessed he was in a hos
pital, because not only was the television
set bolted to a support near the ceiling,
but the person between himself and the
set was wearing a labcoat and listening
to his heartbeat through a stethoscope.
"Well, I seem to be fine," the doctor
said, moving the sensor on the stethoscope
from his own chest to Nielsen's. "Let's
see how you're doing."
"You're going to be OK," Spinoff said
in the encouraging way people talk when
they don't think you're going to be OK.
"Dr. Donahue said it was a very routine
poisoning." She pointed to indicate to
Nielsen that the labcoated gentleman
listening to Nielsen's waltz-tempo heart
beat was the aforementioned Dr. Donahue.
"I assure you we have the finest care
and latest equipment available," Donahue
said. "You name it: Pac-Man, Galaxians,
Donkey Kong, Centipede, and next week,
a brand new kidney dialysis machine."
"I had to do it," Spinoff blurted sud
denly, grabbing Nielsen painfully by the
arm. "Antenna was planning to kill you
and I had to get you out of there."
"Me?" Nielsen said, surprised at his own
enunciation.
He looked at Dr. Donahue, who had
taken off the labcoat to reveal an academic-looking
brown sport coat with leather
elbow patches. He pulled a hand-held
microphone out of his equipment bag.
"Does television violence beget real
life violence?" the gray-haired medicine
man said to no one in particular.
Continued on Pase 1 1
decides to kill his pig Desiree, who is kept
in the cellar. It is illegal for anyone, even a
Communist party member like Pelikan, to
own a pig, and he tires to mask the pig's
dying squeals by having his family sing
anthems.
He sees an old friend, comrade Daniel,
whose life he saved during the war, and
finds that the shadow of something he
can't quite put his finger on has come be
tween them. The friend, against whom he
will later be pressured to testify, is a big
shot now, a government minister, who
talks of Mood Reports and believes in
them. When he falls in the river trying to
catch a catfish, they laugh about it, but the
minister is serious when he says, "You
saw nothing, you heard nothing."
People like Daniel have come to believe
that they in fact do make the truth; his
enemy Virag says anything can be "wiped
away" from the official record, and when
that happens, the offense ceases to exist.
There is an absurd gallery of rogues in
this bureaucracy. General Bastion is at the
top of the heap, and looks a lot like the late
Brezhnev. There is the same pomposity
(he yells "Treason!" when a bunch of
noisy kids is let in the same swimming pool)
heavy cheeks and a uniform heavy with
medals.
Virag is a world-weary, mouse-like
man who looks like E.M. Forster;he seems
to drift languidly toward the grave, threat
ening to shoot himself if Pelikan won't
testify against Comrade Daniel.
Much of the film is a comic repetition:
Pelikan kills a pig, or lets kids swim with a
general, or does something else wrong; he
is arrested by untalkative types in a big
black car; he is taken to prison, where he
shares a cell with a fascist collaborater
torturer and a priest resentful about the
lost church lands; and he is suddenly
released for no apparent reason.
A few days later he will be picked up by
the black car again and taken to talk to
Virag. There he will be soothed by the oily
bureaucrat and told of the great things he
will do for the state; the maid, who wears
a delicate white apron over her spartan
uniform, will grimly bring in a roast pig
or baked fish of frightening size, and he
will be given a new job.
Perhaps the best scene in the movie
shows how badly Pelikan mismanages each
new task. He is put in charge of an amuse
ment park and socializes it; the tunnel of
horrors now has a Socialist Ghost Train,
which goes past a leering blue mask of
Karl Marx and scarey exhibits of the
"spectre haunting Europe," which Marx
warned capitalists of, and some proletar
ians who have "nothing to lose but their
chains," which they clank dolefully. Com
rade Bastion faints at the sight of his own
unlovely visage, the last spook in the
tunnel.
It seems surprising that the Hungarian
government let such a wide-open satire
of socialist bureaucracy be made. At every
point and in a hundred amusing ways, we
are told that the emperor has no clothes.
The bureaucrats believe, simply enough,
that if they say something is so it is so.
And so the now discredited minister
Daniel wasn't trying to catch a fish, but
communicating with frogmen out to
kill the big guy. A lemon isn't a lemon,
but a Hungarian orange.
Pelikan feels guilty that people think his
orange growing experiment actually
succeeded, and all he had to show for it
is a lemon which the general eats with a
straight, or only slightly skewed, face.
Virag tells him to look at the results:
The scientists are happy with their medals,
the masses are happy to celebrate, and the
capitalistic West would be shaking with
fear at the new development.
Virag's made logic leads him to accuse
Pelikan of leaving the truth trodden under
foot when he won't tell lies about his
old friend. And years later, when both
have gray hair and Pelikan has forgotten
his catechism at the big trial and the dike
has broken, Virag still wonders why his
service to the truth hasn't earned more
gratitude from the people who ride the
streetcar with him.
Haps of seven area bands:
music cain be loca! too
Good
By David Creamer
At last, an attempt has been made to
make some of Lincoln's young and in
novative musical talents better known and
more accessible to the listening public.
Jim Jones, co-editor and publisher of
Capitol Punishment magazine, put out
what he terms "the first audio version"
Review
of the publication about four weeks ago.
This is a cassette tape of 24 songs by
seven Lincoln-area bands, including The
Click, Rapid Vapid, Hymn To Joy, Twisted
Justice, Pogrom, Cartoon Pupils and Holi
day. Side one begins with three songs from
The Click. The first is "Intuition,"
followed by "Egypt" and "Construction,"
which both have charming little guitar
licks by Rick Morris.
The members of The Click - Sara
Kovanda on vocals and keyboards, Rick
Morris on guitar, Steve Warsocki on bass,
and Tim Drelischarz on drums - have
been together for more than two years
now and have recently released a four-song
EP.
For those who have never heard them,
The Click is an exciting and talented band
that resembles no other on the local cir
cuit. When trying to describe The Click's
sound in terms of another group, the best
way would probably be to call them a
band sounding similar to the Pretenders
with a more noticeable keyboard.
Rapid Vapid, a band together for about
three months at the time this tape came
out, follows The Click with four fast
paced songs that thrust a message into the
ears of the listener in a style similar to
Black Flag's. This band makes a definite
statement about different aspects of life
and society. Each of the four songs they
recorded - "C.P.B.", "Schleich's Song,"
"Insanity," and "Schleich's Song II." This
last song, for example, deals with the
merits of death and killing one's self.
Rapid Vapid is a five-member band
composed of Patti C. and Andy Davis
on vocals, Dan Kelly on drums, Liz Lang
on bass, and Steve Schleich on guitar.
The third band on the tape, Hymn to
Joy, has been together for about six
months and has already developed a very
distinct style.
The first song, "Fine Home Design,"
is a song that relies heavily on keyboards.
The tune has a modern sound with an
almost echoing drum in the background.
The second song, "Sleepless Nights," is
a simple composition with a strong guitar,
complemented by the keyboard. The
lyrics to both songs are" poetic, but not
te the point of rhyming. Overall, this is
enjoyable original material.
Hymn To Joy is composed of John
Fynbu on vocals, Steve Hinrichs on gui
tar, Dan Hoffman on keyboards, Dennis
Hoffman on bass, Phil Judt on drums, and
Jeft Runnings on keyboards and guitar.
Continued on Pz"z 1 1