During the 1944 Nazi occupation of Hungary, a young woman (Ildikó Bánsági, MEETING VENUS) learns abruptly that her husband (Lajos Balázsovits, REQUIEM) is part of a underground revolutionary group and has had to go into hiding. She is told that she too must go underground and is given a new identity as Kata, wife of the similarly pseudonymous Janos Biro (Péter Andorai, DELIVER US FROM EVIL) with who she must share a rented room in the house of an old couple (Oszkárné Gombik and Károly Csáki) sympathetic to their plight. Extremely wary of the possibility of exposure and distrustful of everyone, Janos bullies her into secrecy and insists that they withhold personal information even from each other. Janos is also extremely suspicious of Kata, and she grows increasingly resentful of the elaborate tests he devises to gauge her trustworthiness; although she too grows fearful and paranoid in her encounters with others. Isolated together mostly in the confines of their single room, Kata and Janos are drawn into a love affair built partly upon confessions about their real lives and shared escapist fantasies. Their happiness is short-lived, however, as the increasing Nazi presence and contacts with their spouses create more distrust and jealousy.

The seventh feature film of Istvan Szabo, the mesmerizing CONFIDENCE preceded the director's ascension to international fame with the Academy Award-winning MEPHISTO (1981), the first of three collaborations with actor Klaus Maria Brandauer. The exteriors are stuffed with extras and period detail in a manner that does not suggest the greater focus on the claustrophobic rented room setting was a purely budgetary choice. Szabo's regular cinematographer Lajos Koltai - Academy Award nominee for MALENA - bathes most of the exteriors and interiors in oppressive blue tones with the occasional hellish reds and more saturated blue gels, while lighting the main characters in increasingly warmer tones (from lamplight, candlelight, and daylight streaming throw windows) as they achieve both physical and emotional intimacy (when they are alone, however, Koltai once again lights them in colder tones). Bánsági and Andorai are riveting presences who have continued to make appearances in Szabo's subsequent higher-profile work. The narrative gives us nothing objective of the characters' pasts beyond what they reveal to one another; this is particularly interesting in Janos' case since his distrust stems from being betrayed to the Nazis by lover (although the flashbacks suggest his paranoia may have set him running without any external confirmation). The intimate nature of this chamber piece alludes to the greater power of political and social oppression and persecution to erode our ability to connect with one another, to experience and face adversity together, and to cement individuals into rigid roles through anxiety and fear about their ability to survive and function.

Eric Cotenas