Anarchy was all very well for the UK, but not
for the Captive Nations of the Warsaw Pact. Of course, that only made Hungary’s
early 1980s underground punk movement embrace the music and its nihilistic
ethos with ever greater fervor. Having secretly documented them in their prime
on Super 8, Lucile Chaufour returned three decades later to see how angry and
rebellious they still were in East Punk
Memories (clip here), which
screens during the 2015 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of
Natural History.
The Communist authorities did not like punk—and
the feeling was mutual. Homegrown Hungarian punk bands verbally smashed the
state every night with politically charged lyrics, such as: “you’re just a
street kid, you’ll never be party secretary” and “Communist drug, no seduction
needed.” You sort of need to hear them in the original Hungarian for the full
effect.
Several of the survivors of the Hungarian punk
scene speak without nostalgia for the frequent feeling they experienced during
the Socialist era that they were being followed (which they often were). Nobody
is ready to shed a tear for Communism, but many are pointedly disappointed with
the austerity and rising nationalism that followed. One former punk probably
speaks for them all when he tells Chaufour he would not want to relive the
Soviet years or the current era.
Yet, indirectly but unmistakably, Chaufour and
several interview subjects hint that the punk movement might be partially
responsible for the current state of things. It seems a legit skinhead faction eventually
split off from the Hungarian punk scene, apparently reading too much into Sid
Vicious’s swastika. You have to wonder if the current public discourse would be
better if they had focused more on the black flag.
