Confidence

Two strangers on the run from Nazi forces must pretend to be husband and wife in Szabó’s taut chamber piece, “a perfect example of an intensely subjective cinema. . . . Romantic, erotic, and disturbing” (Dave Kehr). Set during World War II in occupied Budapest, where neighbors spy on neighbors and military patrols stalk the streets, Confidence conjures up a claustrophobic world of mistrust and surveillance, crystallized within a confined domestic space and the relationship between two people who are rarely able to leave it. (This scenario may sound somewhat familiar to contemporary viewers.) A film whose erotic tensions are as high as its political ones, Confidence underlines not only the physical damage left by war, but the emotional wounds as well.