Movies and Film: Other Eastern Bloc-Busters

Other Eastern Bloc-Busters

The following films are some of the best and most representative works of Eastern Europe's film industry:

  • Erotikon (1929). An early and terrific example of Czech cinema and of erotic film.
  • The Round-Up (Szegnylegyek, 1965). Miklncs's Hungarian period piece about the nineteenth-century torture and coercion of peasants is also visually haunting.
  • The Fireman's Ball (Hor, m panenko, 1967). This early Milos Forman Czech film is a thinly disguised allegory of the absurdity of authoritarianism. It's also hilariously funny, even slapstick at times.
  • The Man of Iron (Czlowiek z zelaza, 1981). Andrzej Wajda's film homage to the Polish Solidarity movement that mixes footage of actual striking workers a decade earlier to provide a sort of prehistory of Solidarity.
book cover

Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Movies and Film © 2001 by Mark Winokur and Bruce Holsinger. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

To order the e-book book direct from the publisher, visit the Penguin USA website. You can also purchase this book at Amazon.com.