As in all of his documentaries, Gazdag here finds enough absurdity and poignancy in the real-life exploits of his fellow countrymen not to require a fictional script. He did do a little maneuvering, however, to pull off The Banquet-namely, laid the banquet itself, where the aging denizens of a small town in the southeast corner of Hungary meet to reminisce about an incident in the Spring of 1945 that put their village on the map. It was soon after the liberation by the Russians that the village of Vésztó declared itself an independent Soviet republic, selected a President and ministers, set up its own administrative organization-and stopped aliens without permits at the border. Gazdag might have known that these radical townspeople would not just remember but would animatedly relive the events of 1945 for him to capture, cinéma-verité style, and preserve. The Banquet is a kind of capsule of the passions as well as the unintentional humor Gazdag appreciates in the Hungarian political spirit.