Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls! (1970)
Director: Márta Mészáros Run Time: 84 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 1970 Language: Hungarian
Starring: Blaskó Péter, Jaroslava Schallerová, Kati Sír, Lajos Balázsovits, Márk Zala
Country: Hungary
Language: Hungarian
Presented at the Film Center as part of The Films of Márta Mészáros, a highlighted retrospective of the feminist screenwriter and director’s filmography, newly restored and on the big screen, from June 10—15, 2022.
About the film:
Infused with the spirit of rock ’n’ roll and rebellion, this music-driven counterculture snapshot unfolds to a near wall-to-wall soundtrack of late 1960s-early 1970s Hungarian psych and folk as it traces the odyssey of a young woman (Jaroslava Schallerová, star of the Czech New Wave classic Valerie and Her Week of Wonders) who, on the eve of her marriage to a factory worker (Márk Zala), experiences a final moment of freedom when she runs away with a touring band.
One of Márta Mészáros’ most formally experimental works due to its minimal dialogue and almost proto-music video style, Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls! reflects the cultural sea change sweeping Europe at a time when traditional values were being shaken by a youthquake of individual self expression.
About the filmmaker:
Márta Mészáros is a socialist and feminist filmmaker whose trailblazing, six-decade career broke barriers in cinema hierarchies, helped legitimize women’s artistic emancipation within the industry, alongside her contemporaries such as Agnès Varda and Věra Chytilová. Read more.
Gateway Film Center is pleased to present a selection of Mészáros’s most essential films.
The Films of Márta Mészáros See our upcoming films