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Istvan Szabo's short film You was shown in the 1964 Melbourne Film Festival and it indicated the arrival of a new talent in Hungarian cinema. Szabó is only 26, and in this, his first feature film, he takes a wistful look at a group of youths and their coming of age, in a Communist society. The director faces the problems of his generation with a candour and deftness of touch influenced by the New Wave directors he so much admires.
Four young men and a girl, full of youthful enthusiasm, graduate from an engineering school. Ready to set the world on fire, they are against authority but find themselves separated, unable to travel and forced to conform to the pattern of society. During this unravelling, one of the engineers falls in love with a law student. In a painful last meeting, they realise they have nothing permanent to offer each other. Szabó's yearning for independence in a world still swayed by obsolete conventions is summed up in their parting and he has given us a sophisticated, ironic, and even a melancholic film.
Silver Sail Award, Locarno Festival.