Péter Gothár's impressive debut film (he had previously worked in television and theater), A Priceless Day won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, and has been hailed at London's National Theatre as one of the outstanding new films from Hungary. Like the work of Kézdi-Kovács (see May 7), it is a sardonic approach to social realism, using the housing crisis as a foil for human endeavor and a measure of character.
“It is a film which touches on many everyday problems of Hungarian life, wrapping up a kaleidoscopic array of small observations within a loosely-structured story about a kindergarten teacher's Machiavellian attempts to gain a flat for herself and her married lover. The painful odyssey - entailing a marriage of convenience to gain Budapest registration - exposes the mercenary friendships and alliances which make up the woman's social world, as well as its ironies. And it is with the latter that the film ends.... Gothár's style, full of long, restless, hand-held sequences in confined spaces, is often rough-and-ready...but the film works by virtue of its performances above all: a tour-de-force of desperate energy from Cecilia Esztergalyos as Iren, a nice line in quiet humour from Janos Dersi as the arranged husband, and a warm final cameo from Judit Pogany as the wife.”--Derek Elley, Films & Filming