Reviews & Ratings for
Another Way More at IMDbPro »Egymásra nézve (original title)

27 out of 29 people found the following review useful:
"Poor Wretches!", 7 July 1999
Author: Michael Coy (michael.coy@virgin.net) from London, England

In Budapest in 1958, the population is cowed by the oppressive, intrusive, ubiquitous presence of Stalinism. Two young women embark on a love affair in defiance of the social pressures ranged against them.

Eva (Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieslak) is an intellectual and a journalist. Born a peasant, and with her roots still very much in village life, her version of Magyar nationalism is the very antithesis of Stalinism. Unconventional in all things, Eva is a confirmed lesbian.

Livia is the voluptuous blonde who shares an office with Eva at "The Truth", the Budapest magazine for which they both work. Livia (Grazyna Szopolowska) is utterly unlike Eva. Big and sexy where Eva is small and wiry, she has an easy, unthinking physicality. She plays water-polo better than the men, and dances the night away at the Selznok party. Married to Denci, the army officer, she leads a life of bland sexual and political conformity.

Though she has not realised it up to now, Livia is dissatisfied with her dull urban existence. Life and work in Stalinist Budapest is a drab, joyless grind. Eva, the brash intellectual with heretical ideas and peasant common sense disrupts editorial meetings. She is a breath of fresh air. Livia becomes interested.

The culmination of the story is both a triumph and a tragedy. The ending cannot be revealed here, but it is both fitting and lamentable.

Karoly Makk directs with quiet flair. The speech of the Selznok chairman is a moving 'history of Hungary in the 20th century', seen through the eyes of one peasant. Winter imagery surrounds the characters, representing the iron-hard clutch of sterile Stalinism. In perfect keeping with the period, the film has a classy jazz score.

Verdict - First-rate politico-sexual parable.

15 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Melancholy but honest, 5 April 1999
Author: Andrew Brack from Cornwall, England

I first saw "Another Way" in 1982 in a small London art cinema. Set in Hungary in 1958, it conveys something of the tedium of life there and then, and in an age when lesbianism is no longer a dangerous secret, the tension of a relationship needing to be kept under wraps is brilliantly conveyed. Grazyna Szapolowska - is there a more beautiful woman anywhere is the world? - plays the woman who is apparently happily married to a Hungarian army officer, who finds herself strangely attracted to the new arrival at the office. I will say no more of the plot in case you have a chance to see this moody but magnificent film. Gabor Reviczky portrays the kind of young man to whom a bottle is the answer to all life's problems, and Josef Kroner is the editor of the magazine who may appear to be housetrained by the Communist party but is actually a rebel in his own right. Hardly a feelgood movie, but when you need a cry this is not to be ignored.

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