Just prior to the explosion of American teen films in the 1980s that followed American Graffiti (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Risky Business, The Outsiders, Revenge of the Nerds, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Stand By Me, Sixteen Candles, Teen Wolf, The Breakfast Club, Dirty Dancing and My American Cousin just to name a few), Gothar made this Hungarian film about a group of teens living in Budapest. The film traces their lives over the course of over ten years, focusing on two brothers in a family torn apart by politics. The institutions represented by the school and revolutionaries frame the protagonists' plot, but do not interfere. The result is a delightful and intriguing tale of a young man dealing with all the problems of adolescence: women, friends, popularity, sex, alcohol and cigarettes - combined with the ever-present influence of American culture. The film is beautifully photographed and there are some innovative uses of the camera and colour. All the tricks are here: slow-motion, wide angle, different colour; but they do not cloud the film and they are certainly not kitschy. Gothar creates an atmosphere filled with confused and mature teens (more like the dramatic Dead Poets Society rather than the other films mentioned above) that will keep you involved and interested in the characters' lives.

Highly recommended.

A great movie. Director Peter Gothar crafts a masterpiece of teen angst set against the backdrop of post-revolution Hungary. It's tragic, bleak, depressing and yet somehow uplifting. Gothar's teens are just as lost as their American counterparts and just as rebellious (albiet with much higher stakes). The lead, Magda, is trying desperately to fit in, while at the same time trying to do what his father has told him (be your own person and DON'T SPEAK up about anything unless asked). The movie is littered with rock-n-roll tunes from the 50s and Gothar makes particularly haunting use of "You Are My Destiny." Extremely well made and excellently acted.

This is an excellent film, rather more than worthy, set, as the previous comment says, in post-1956 (hence post revolution) Hungary. It traces the lives of a group of kids in their last days at school, the father of one of them having fled into exile after the failure of the revolution. The kids are trying to cope with the world the revolution has left behind, and what they chiefly find helpful is western rock n'roll. They want a decadent lifestyle in a puritan state. If rebellion with a cause was no good, why not try being a rebel without a cause? Sex and drugs and the rest.

Sharp, realist, lyrical and poignant, it avoids both sentimentality and cynicism. Nor is it grandeur it is after, but the low hard nitty-gritty of adolescence in a vacuum. Top stuff, and probably the director Gothár's best.