Did you receive any feedback that the events depicted in the film resonated with the personal family stories of audiences?

“It is true that the screenings so far show that it moves something in everybody. I reckon that I have never made such an emotional movie before, I was always interested in the fate of women and children, the depiction of suffering is important for me, but I don’t like sentimentalism.”

The backstory to Aurora Borealis could also have been the subject of a Márta Mészáros film. News reports suggest it was preceded by a great deal of investigation and many conversations.

“Four years ago I read an interview in the periodical BBC History with Viennese sociologist Barbara Stelzl-Marx, who has devoted her life to researching the parents of children born of war. They set up an institute in Graz designed to help this invisible generation that does not know its roots and who have had the identities of their fathers concealed.”

Is it this institute that appears in the film for a few minutes?

“Yes, and Barbara even got access to KGB files in Moscow. They only dealt with concerned Austrians but after the Second World War many children were left in Europe who had been born largely as the result of rape or from relationships between local women and occupying troops, and whose origin was concealed out of a sense of shame or fear. Firstly, we made a documentary film about the Austrians and I got to know many very fine and many extremely ugly dramatic stories. Today, there are several hundred thousand ‘war children’ living in Europe: children of Russian, American, English, French, German, and Polish soldiers. During the Soviet occupation, Hungary underwent similar traumas but a start on researching Hungarian ‘war children’ has not even begun. We started writing the screenplay of Aurora Borealis with Éva Pataki and Zoltán Jancsó. The base story plays out in Vienna during the occupation of the city by the four Allied powers after the war. Right from the start I had Mari Törőcsik in mind for the lead role, the part was written for her. We always got on well with her but since she has been ill, I go to see her even more frequently and we chat a lot. I always considered her a great actress but after she came out of coma her impressive human qualities have also intensified. The Mária in the film is similarly lying in a coma between life and death while her daughter starts digging into the past.”

She also has a grandchild who turns to the past with interest but no fear. It is partly this child that induces the mother to begin researching. Is this difference in attitude typical for first and second generations processing trauma?

“The relationship between the mother and son in the film is very open, unlike between the mother and daughter. Once the grandson realizes that there are several secrets, he takes a smart, undramatic approach to the issue. His relationship with his grandmother is also good, he shows wisdom in his questioning and does not reproach her. I have found that many families break up because the children are angry with the parents for not telling them the truth out of a sense of shame and fear. In Hungary, people are less forgiving which is why it commonly happens that the parents don’t tell their children the truth. The statistics confirm, for example, that compared to the Poles there are many more divorces, contacts between relations are not very good, and lies within the family are extremely bad for the family. Not only because as Slavs, the Poles are more emotional but because they are extremely devout and religion is good for family relationships. They have a strong maternal cult, grandmothers are respected and they love the elderly. As far as I can see, in Hungary young people resent the elderly, they sidle away from them and don’t give up their seat for them. They have some sort of inner tension. I have worked my entire life yet I managed to bring up three children, I have nine grandchildren that I still have time for. The problem is with the soul and I think part of this is down to parents not being honest.”

Do you believe in God?

“Look, I lived in Poland for 20 years, my partner’s family were simple believers from the countryside. My father was executed, my mother died because of this, at ten I had nobody, and when I met Jan Nowicki, his loving sister and mother had a very great impact on me. It was a beautiful and kind family. They took religion seriously, at Christmas there were 13 plates on the table, one reserved for Jesus. They not only unwrapped the presents but they also spoke about what made them happy or unhappy. I first heard of Katyn in a Polish village church, we prayed together for the victims even though at that time there was socialism there, too. This openness had a great influence on me although I am not religious. But I have faith within me. During my childhood I grew up without a family and that is why mentally and emotionally I always lived together with my parents. Without faith, this cannot happen.”

The film’s cinematographer, Piotr Sobociński Jnr., is also Polish. Why did you choose him?

“His grandfather, Witold Sobociński, was cinematographer for Andrzej Wajda and Polanski, and we filmed The Seventh Room together with his father, Piotr. This movie is about Edith Stein, faith, Jews and Carmelites. The Hungarians didn’t watch it but it was his favourite film. When he went to America to work he took this with him to show his producer, who screened it for Mel Gibson. Maia Morgenstern was my lead role in The Seventh Room, from where she was selected for The Passion of the Christ. At that time Gibson wrote me a few lines thanking me for the film. I was lucky with the Diaries because audiences were slightly more interested in the past around the time of the change of regime.

“But coming back to the cinematographer, I was in a trattoria in Warsaw once when from a distance I thought I saw Piotr standing in the doorway, but he was no longer alive then. It was his son and he told me he was studying cinematography. I wrote his number down and told him that he would be my cameraman on my next film.”

It appears from the choice of screenwriter and cinematographer that in the profession, too, family tradition is important for you.

“It is important. We also paid a lot of attention to our children, nearly everyone was involved with film, and although my daughter is a ceramic artist she has made many clothes for me and for her father’s films. Nyika is a very good cinematographer, Zoli is a good writer, everyone here is involved with culture, there are no business people in the family. Miklós loved the grandchildren, he was a better grandfather than father. At that time he was always travelling but he spent hours talking with his grandchildren and reading to them. His grandchildren really miss him.”

And how did you come to choose Franciska Törőcsik to play the young Mária?

“We had already gone through all the attractive young actresses and we thought we would never find anybody when she walked in, we chatted a bit, I looked at her, I think I even asked her to take a small pillow in her hands as though it were her child. I knew almost immediately that she was the talented actress I wanted, her individuality simply poured out of her, she is very diligent, collected, attentive, I like this type.”

You didn’t even look at her earlier films?

“Of course I didn’t! This is one of my skills, I virtually never make a mistake in actors.”

And Ildikó Tóth?

“Ildikó is also a wonderful and modest actor. When we were shooting the scenes for Mariska (Mari Törőcsik), who had to sit in a cold peasant house for a long time despite her being ill, everything revolved around her and she found it very difficult to put up with the cold and the inconvenience. Ildikó was a bit scared of the big scenes in which they are together a lot. In one of the scenes, Mari, as if she hadn’t noticed Ildikó, turned to me and said, ‘You, Mészáros, you were right, this is a great actress.’”

The secret comes to light in this peasant house. Sometimes through a flashback, sometimes through a cruel comment, whichever is more effective. Was this originally like this in the screenplay?

“No, these came about on the spot. The screenplay is important for me to provide a good structure and the dialogue should not be nonsense. Ildikó and Mari know everything about themselves, they were clever in changing words here and there, their most difficult scenes were performed in a spinetingling way, they moved and communicated with each other very effectively. And the scene where the secret is unfolded that lasted from the afternoon to dawn is enhanced by incredible light and spatial effects.”  

 

You both attended the Liszt Academy’s class for outstandingly talented students from the age of 12, and I think you both sat together. When did this transform into love?

Barnabás: “At the age of 12 I think we just teased each other, as is normal at this age, and then we both had older friends and girlfriends.”

Kati: “I had a serious platonic relationship but I found myself to be less and less happy with it.”

Barnabás: “…all that remained of passion was suffering.”

Kati: “I remember that my mother told me not to hang around the house and to get off to Keszthely because Dénes Zsigmondy was holding a masterclass, besides which Barnabás Kelemen was also there and I could at least hear him play the violin. In Keszthely, I contacted him to ask whether he could get me into the classes because I was not officially registered. Then we had a whole week to chat and that was enough for me to realize: he will be my husband.”

Barnabás: “When we travelled back home on the bus, we were already talking about the names of our future children. A few months ago we went to Keszthely mansion with the children and showed them those places where we had spent that week on the masterclass, and where our first kiss had happened.”

Barnabás shows the picture of Kati taken in Keszthely 20 years ago (he has it scanned into his telephone), then the recent photo in the mansion where they are all smiling as a three-child family – Hanna and Gazsi visible, their little sister still hidden.

How old were you when you started planning to have children?

Barnabás: “I was 18, Kati was not even that. I was six months older, luckily, because that was important for Kati.”

Kati: “Rather, stability was important so that I could feel secure. I wasn’t looking for that type of boy who was a bit of a handful. My father and mother fell in love when they were very young, my father is extremely family-centric, he was 15 when he told my mother that she would be his wife. I had been looking for my partner my whole life and Barnabás was my first serious relationship. And it was also important that I could look up to him.”

Barnabás:

“It’s important that we pull each other up. In love, in friendship, and in the teacher-student relationship.

“I, too, was seriously seeking a wife, before Kati I had never had a girlfriend I planned to spend my life with, but finally I saw that this could happen with Kati. In kindergarten, I wanted to have six children, three boys, and three girls.”

Kati: “A long time ago, when parents planned the marriages, they frequently chose very well (except when, for example, financial considerations came to the fore). Nobody knows a child better than the parent.”

Are you thinking that your mother deliberately sent you to Keszthely?

Kati: “In the end, yes… In this story, the family is important. We come from very similar families. Musician and teacher parents, furthermore, from among our grandparents there were farm labourers, so we also know what hard work is and hardship.

“We had so many things in common that we could build our lives on one another in all areas. As I saw in the case of my parents.”

 Were they your role models?

Kati: “Yes. Not only my parents but my grandmother, too. At 80, she is still the grand dame of Pécs to this day, to whom ladies go for aerobics, tennis, skiing, not only for the exercise but her wisdom and advice. She is virtually a psychologist for her students.”

Barnabás: “Kati has a very close relationship with her mother and grandmother.”

Kati: “I always felt that if I wanted to do something that would shame me in their eyes, it would be better not to do it. They sense if I have a problem, the telephone sometimes rings immediately at those times. They have guided me my whole life. When at the age of 12 I moved to Pest so I could attend the class of Ferenc Halász at the Liszt Academy, the start of college residence living represented the same as suddenly becoming an adult.”

Barnabás: “And at that time, there was not a lot of positive news about the halls of residence of the ballet school.”

Kati: “There was a great atmosphere, I still love the world of dancers. However, generally those who deal with the body from a young age live this with a sort of naturalness in their private life as well. At that time there was not even a telephone but my parents placed complete trust in me so it didn’t even occur to me not to live up to this trust.”

Barnabás: “I, too, regularly bless the rigour of my parents. I have just come back from a tour where I played Bartók’s violin concerto every day over three days, meanwhile in the afternoon I was teaching my students who came there from Cologne, and I was preparing the Shostakovich violin concerto that I will play. The only way I could do this is by going back to that Bartók violin concerto I studied at the age of 20 with my parents and with my Liszt Academy teacher Eszter Perényi for an entire year. Without them I would not be here and I would not have a repertoire that allows me to live such a life. The routine makes it possible to learn a Szymanowski or Penderecki violin concerto very quickly but they are not embedded so deeply in me. I think that I wouldn’t be able to perform these in the same way in ten years’ time.”

Kati: “This is a bit like microwaving: things heat up fast, but cool down fast. However, if you cook something for a long time in an oven, it retains the heat longer. In fact, I could similarly perform the Bartók violin concerto at any time with just a little practice.”

Barnabás: “You learnt it because of me.”

Do you learn pieces for each other’s sake?

Barnabás: “We teach each other, and learn from each other.”

Kati: “Barnabás is the most important critic and his opinion is most important for me. But the fact is that an outsider in whom you trust is important. On the other hand, you have to be very careful when, what and how you say something. It took us a few years before we had learnt this in relation to each other. A person – primarily immediately after giving concerts – is very fragile.”

Barnabás: “Sometimes the smallest twig you throw on the fire can immediately flare up.”

Kati: “I would say that Barnabás practices astoundingly. Faultless even from the very first play. He is always in the same collected state and is only happy once he has completed his daily practice, even in summer if we are on holiday. My mood and my current state of enthusiasm are always very apparent in my practice sessions. I am rhapsodic.”

Barnabás: “That’s going a bit far, obviously I don’t feel myself to be perfect at the first go. But I also teach my students that it is necessary to practice concert intensity, this cannot be done in arrears.”

 And when the benefit, the endorphins, the success kick in?

Barnabás: “During the concert itself I sense with 98% certainty how the audience will react. That kind of endorphin, or let’s rather call it uplift, starts during the preparation and keeps going during and after the performance. If the concert proves to be a success, then afterwards one gets a sense of relief and this good feeling lasts until it is time to sleep. Now, for example, I still feel the concert tour exhausting-uplifting effect. I simply don’t understand how it is possible for some people to give 150 concerts a year over many years with just a fortnight’s break! I had to share out my energy over just these three days. I couldn’t give everything of myself at the first occasion, and not only because of the audience but for the orchestra, too, I could not be the same person who they heard play on the previous evening.

“A major London-based management company put the question to me of how many concerts I would like. Many great artists jump at a hundred, whereas I felt happy with fifty.”

Kati: “‘Success’ is not the goal. Discovering the brilliant world of composers, understanding, experiencing their thinking and emotions… this gives the most profound joy also while dealing with works at home. And to finally share this with an audience desiring to know this is true pleasure. The joy of giving. But in the end, we don’t give ourselves... we are merely channels, media.

“Career is another story: I could have longed to play solo in the biggest concert halls of the world. When at the age of 23 I won the Szigeti József International Violin Competition, in the same week Barnabás won his most important competition in America, and Hanna was born two weeks later.

“I felt that I had made my mark, I was recognized in the profession, it is possible to come back to this but family is the most important.

“If the desire for a soloist career had been just a little bit stronger in me, that would have been the opportunity had I thought about the important things in life in a completely different way. But I never sought the lonely glitter. I experienced that I could be at the head of good orchestras on many occasions and I could also play the majority of concertos many times. But for me, my family came first, the life of a soloist cannot bear compromise. My husband also needs my support.”

Barnabás: “I remember that once Kati went for a Tchaikovsky tour with a Taiwanese orchestra and she suffered a lot.”

Kati: “I cried a lot every evening. Hanna was perhaps two, she stayed with my parents in Kaposvár and Barnabás was touring on the other side of the world.”

 I read that you were loaned a Stradivari violin. Is it still with you?

Kati: “I was happy to play on it for a few years. It had a superb tone. I don’t know what has happened to it since because I had to return it suddenly without any reason. It was very unexpected because suddenly I found myself without an instrument although there were important concerts coming up. However, I found a serviceable violin in the range of state instruments, this is a Testore master instrument that I could take home with me. But it had a dead tone. I took it to a cimbalom player who builds violins. He set up the soul of the violin in just a few minutes (a small wooden sound post between the two sides) and then he moved this a few hundredths of a millimeter and... its true sound came out! I still play on this, it is one year older than my Stradivari.

“But I can say that I was playing on a very nice Stradivari violin with the sound of Queen of the Night for five years. I am grateful for this opportunity.”

If you were forced to choose between podium or teaching, which would you go for?

Barnabás: “One presupposes the other. For example, at Cologne University the Russian concertmaster of the orchestra wants to learn the Bartók violin concerto from me because he heard me playing.”

Kati: “Teaching changes the way I play and while practicing I often consider how a piece should be taught. I couldn’t develop as a teacher if I wasn’t present on stage. My real dream is a musical salon, where – even if there were only 20 people in the audience – we plan masterclasses and gatherings including talks, music, and readings in a family-style, intimate atmosphere. This together with teaching would completely satisfy me. I am passionate about teaching. I am happy if I can give, I am very interested in the different ways I can give my students wings, their enthusiasm has an impact on me as well.

“I would like them to realize that things are simple, all that is needed is to discover the key, playing and dealing with music is the greatest happiness.”

Barnabás: “It is interesting that at the Liszt Academy, the word was that Kati was very strict but in general her students were pleasantly surprised after two months.”

Kati: “It is true that those who come to me want to be driven. It happened that I had to give up on somebody, not as a punishment or because I was fed up with them, but because I thought that another teacher could get more out of them.”

Gazsi also wants to be a violinist. How strict do you have to be with him?

Kati: “He wants to be a ‘violinist footballer’. He is now at that age when we think more serious practising can start. In many Asian countries, they start to train children at the age of three or four, when they don’t wish themselves to do this. So far, Gazsi didn’t practice in any summer break, he only kicked a ball around and was happy. We reckon that the European education can make up for this disadvantage by the age of 18-20 and no childhood is lost this way. If somebody starts to play the violin seriously, it means a minimum two hours practising a day even when young.”

In what does Gazsi look up to his father most?

Barnabás: “Today, he received me by saying, Dad, I was at the barber and my hair is just like yours. Of course, what he most wants to resemble me in is playing the violin. We planted this desire in him as well because he heard his great grandfather, my grandfather Pali Pertis on a video recording, whose father was himself similarly a violinist. He likes Gypsy music as well, but if he plays folk music with Szalonna and orchestra he is very happy too.”

Kati: “But it is classical music that he most wants to play. It is important what Dad says when he plays what he has just learnt. It is very important how one reacts at this time. One has to give praise but also improve. Aunt Éva, Gazsi’s fantastic violin teacher, is the greatest help in this matter; we also learn a lot from her at my son’s violin classes.”

 Recently you decided that your children would be private students. Because of Gazsi?

Kati: “Both of my children clearly pointed out what they needed. Hanna came to me saying, Mum, you are not paying attention, you hardly talk to me. Do you have time to lie next to me and have a chat? Frequently we are playing with Barnabás until 9.30 pm or we are not in Hungary for one or two weeks.

“At such times, my father and mother always provided that family energy the children needed. Without them, this family could not exist like it does. They moved to Budapest just because of this 4-5 years ago.

“Gazsi is taken to football training by the other grandfather and his partner three times a week and this is also a huge help. This all worked but I saw that when Hanna came back from school she was tired and it was not a good tiredness. I didn’t see that learning was inspiring her and making her happy, that she wanted to go to school, although this is a school with a good reputation. I was worried. It is not good when a person doesn’t like to study and develop. Something must change. It also hurt that the two siblings go to school in the morning, they learn separately, they attend extra classes and they only come home late in the evening. They don’t see each other and thus childhood passes, only teasing each other in the evening when they are tired out. Now or never – these years cannot be brought back!

“When I was 16, I won a four-year scholarship to Canada to study under Lóránd Fenyves. At that time, my little sister Dóra was born. I thought it would be impossible for my sister to be introduced to me at the age of four years! Instead, I returned earlier and we brought her up together with my parents and my younger brother, we played music with her, teaching her. She was involved in bringing up my children in the same way. Hanna and Gazsi have been private students for two weeks. A marvellous teacher comes to us and tutors them. I can already see that this overloaded fatigue and depression have disappeared. When I told them what I wanted to do, Hanna was very grateful. She asked me: seriously, will you do this for me? Hanna is interested in jazz, pop music, she composes, writes books, sings, and studies theatrical improvization. She plays piano but does not want to be a pianist. When she first revealed that although she had won a national piano competition she would rather have an animal farm with a huge estate, she was a bit nervous about what our response would be, but we told her, no problem.

“Only those should be allowed to play music beyond amateur level who do it from passion.”

 What did Gazsi think of private studying?

Kati: “He goes in to school for gym classes, he doesn’t want to miss them, and this required an affectionate attitude and the permission of the school and Gazsi’s teachers. Practising is much easier for him as well this way, he can even come to see me at the Liszt Academy when I am teaching. To a certain extent, I have brought them back to the nest. I also spend more time at home and now that the baby is coming, I will have fewer concerts anyway. We wouldn’t like to separate them from their own friends, society, but we all need this now. It is possible that we will spend a year with them in Cologne so that they can learn another language, experience another type of mentality, and can learn what home and homeland mean. One can only truly see this when one is viewing it from a distance...”

Are you preparing for Christmas?

Kati: “At Christmas we are all together, my grandmother, my father, my mother, last year her sibling was also with us together with their family, my younger brother and wife with two children, my younger sister with her partner, whose mother will also come this year, indeed her cousins as well. Unfortunately, my husband’s mother died a few years ago but we have a fantastic step-granny, Marcsi. We always make our own presents with the children, this is the programme at home during Advent. Shopping is just stressful, of course the children also always receive some presents we buy, but doing handicrafts together is a lasting experience. I have already bought the basic materials for this year, last year we worked with glass, I cannot tell you what we are doing this year because it is a surprise.”

Meanwhile, the head of the family orders dinner over the phone and then he gets everyone moving – although the children have made themselves at home in the studio, even Gazsi would like to stay because he has made friends with the son of the photographer, Laci Emmer. But Barnabás came straight here from the airport and it is already past nine at night. It is just like a family beginning to pack up after an enjoyable visit on a Saturday evening. As they gather together suitcases, violins and a dog, it once again comes to my mind that despite their enormous talent and Bohemian attitude, how naturally everything went and in what a cheerful mood they were. Just like in an orchestra where different personalities play according to their own inner laws while paying attention and reacting to the other’s tiny vibrations at every moment.

I have long been convinced that one should seek the true opponents of women or women’s affairs, family matters or life not in so-called society, not in prevailing governments, not in men, nor in bad habits or traditions, not in radical feminists or the LMBTQ movements, no, primarily not there at all. Conservatives should not point to the radical left wing, and left wingers should not point to Christian conservatives when they want to do good for women, certainly not!

Consumption, that is, those economic players who generate and influence consumption and profit from it, are the most important manipulators of the image women have of themselves and the image society has of women. Those who primarily target women because women hold the keys to the family purse. Surveys show that women also decide about car purchases. We already know that if you want to sell a property, medicine or medical aid, food, clothing, summer holiday, school or course, culture or a healthy lifestyle, you have to convince the women. Thus one finds women’s magazines on the supposedly moribund print market stuffed from cover to cover with advertisements. In the interest of achieving a better result, the advertisements project a picture of an upper-middle class woman’s image that is heavily burdened with social conventions in comparison with the real world.

It is vital to be beautiful – but what beauty is precisely is presented to us through a bounteous supply of images, yet the path to achieving this ideal comes at the cost of excessive consumption.

A healthy lifestyle is also extremely important: to achieve this requires no end of expensive sports gear, dietary supplements, wonder doctors (and real ones!), classes and expensive food.

It is also necessary to ensure that the children have a carefree, untroubled childhood and this, too, requires the purchase of a houseful of things. As far as I can see, there is only one thing more wicked, more manipulative, more immoral than the beauty industry and that is the baby business, with its infant formulas, unnecessary equipment and primarily the ‘good motherhood’ myth, which immediately goes up in smoke once the poor mother doesn’t rush out and buy the very latest useless piece of junk for babycare. We have barely returned home from the hospital and already the post box contains the first promotional literature in the baby’s name from somebody (precisely at the same time as the arrival of a tax and social insurance number).

Women’s magazines have a surfeit not only of beautifully created advertisements but sponsored content, too. One has to be on the ball to spot these, you need sharp eyes and editorial experience. It is no coincidence that a high proportion of the articles in average women’s magazines, particularly those targeting young women, are about beauty, cooking and travel. They assist in the formation of a self-image in defenceless teens in which consumption is a powerful accessory of ‘normal’ life.

If you are a woman, you don’t need an opinion on current affairs, you don’t need to have a standpoint in the defence of your own system of values, in fact, you don’t even need a system of values. You don’t need to belong to a community, only if that community is held together by consumption, a girlfriend is first and foremost a person to go shopping with. Aside from this, the world is just made up of dull things. Anything that one can get absorbed in is boring, dry, a dusty, scholarly thing, which we are tired of in everyday life. Magazines take great care not to speak about these things.

The biggest opponent of consumption is the thinking man. The one who recognises what is valuable and what is not. The person who has an opinion. Who takes a stand. Who is interested not in the world of magazines concentrating on consumption but on the world in its entirety. Seen through the window of magazines, we get only a very narrow slice of this world.

How good it would be to give our children, partner, friends and colleagues thinking as a present for Christmas! The possibility of thought. A book. A periodical. Intellectual experience. Conversation. Theatre.

So, Black Friday. No, please don’t buy anything! After all, you will spend tomorrow – my child would also like Lego, and they love chicken with coconut milk, and I simply must get a few new rags for the pre-Christmas parties. We buy things, that is how it is, this is how we live in liberty. Just let’s all try to preserve a little capacity for thinking! Because anybody who has been weaned off thinking by consumption is easily open to all sorts of other manipulation – power plays, political influence, inhuman mass movements.

We in the editorial office of Képmás are extremely proud that the magazine we make prompts one to think. We respect the thinking person in the reader. And since we determinedly stand by the system of values we espouse, we are not going to plunge those who have chosen us into the darkness of Black Friday just for the sake of our advertisers. We will not sacrifice them to consumption and the advertisers propagating consumption.

In the Christian conservative value judgement, Friday is the day of fasting. I don’t want to be didactic, I won’t continue this train of thought.