Budapest, World War II. Four friends gather at a closed bar and talk at the table: Gyurica, Kovacs, Kiraly and Bela, the innkeeper. A man with a limp, on crutches, Keszei, unexpectedly enters and joins them. Gyurica poses a philosophical question: on a fictional island, a monarch, Tomoceusz Katatiki, abuses his slave Gyugyu by cutting his tongue, poking one of his eyes, taking away his children. But Gyugyu at least feels comfort that he is superior by being good and innocent, regardless. If they were to die, would they choose to be reborn as Tomoceusz or Gyugyu? That night, all the friends sleep badly, struggling with this question. They are arrested by Fascist agents and beaten in a prison for calling them murderers. A Fascist official shows them a dying anti-Fascist tied in a Christ-like pose and tells them they are free to go if they slap him twice. They all refuse and are executed, except Gyurica who slaps him and is released. As he walks, buildings collapse from bombings.
One of the best movies of the 70s, a one that feels equally as fresh and relevant even today, Zoltan Fabri's "The Fifth Seal" is a phenomenal philosophical film posing the ultimate moral question: if they were forced to pick a side, would people choose the stronger evil or the weaker good? Would they choose to save their soul if it is not rewarding? This is a highly unusual film, contemplating about Jean Paul Sartre's bad faith thought experiment and the external pressures that persuade people to accept false values, but also displaying a strange structure. In the opening 42-minute segment, "The Fifth Seal" plays out on only one location, a bar, consisting only out of five people talking at the table. At first, the viewers are not sure what kind of a film they are watching, nor where this is going. All this is initially static. Until the protagonist Gyurica poses a thought provoking question: if they were forced to choose, would they pick to live as an evil, cruel, powerful tyrant or his slave who is constantly abused and mistreated, but remains incorruptibly purehearted? In the intermission segment, the four friends cannot sleep because they are struggling with this question, doubting their own ethics and integrity.
As Kovacs and Bela observe, they are passive to the world around them, because that is the least dangerous ("I've got no wealth, but I've got clear conscience!" - "Our names won't be printed in history books, but we never did anything evil, either"). Nothing is shown as black-and-white, either: Gyurica is a cynic, but secretly takes care not only for his three children at home, but is also hiding a Jewish girl during World War II; whereas the opportunistic Bela is paying money both to a Fascist commander and to a woman whose husband was taken away by the Fascists, since he calculates that he can thus have evidence of both pro-Fascism and anti-Fascism after the war, depending on whoever wins. While the first segment is the moral question in theory, the last segment is the practice: the four friends are arrested by Fascists, beaten in jail, and then given an impossible choice. They must abandon their self-respect and show loyalty to the Fascists by slapping a tortured man, half-dead, standing in a Christ-like pose as his two hands are tied up in opposite directions in jail—if they hit him, they are free to go; if they refuse, they will be shot. "The Fifth Seal" is one of the rare movies where the last 15 minutes decisively decide the impression of the whole: all the doubts from the opening act disappear and the viewers are left feeling shattered, trying to pull themselves together after experiencing such intensity and contemplation. This is, in essence, a Christian film about saving your soul and being good. If it had been directed by I. Bergman, "The Fifth Seal" would have been one of the top 5 best Bergman movies. As it has been directed by Fabri, it is one of the best Hungarian movies of the 20th century.
Grade:+++
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