Szépleányok
Semi-documentary film about the first beauty contest in socialist Hungary, which was organised in Budapest in 1985 based on the Western model. With surprisingly clear criticism and full of fury, the film denounces the dubious manipulations and greed for profit of the organisers, but above all the unscrupulous trivialisation of the suicide of the 17-year-old winner, a schoolgirl.
The film examines the background to the first beauty contest in Hungary in 50 years. Using intelligent editing and interviews, the film succeeds in creating a surprisingly impressive analysis of the complicated interweaving of unscrupulous economic interests at the expense of human dignity. Trusting in the documentary power of their material, the directors oblige the viewer to think for themselves without ever falling into an obvious moral imperative.
"Beauties" thus enables an increase in socio-psychological and media-critical insight that is rare even in documentary film and can be described as emancipatory in the broadest sense of the word. (Image: © BBS Research Archive)