The Exam

Running time: 89 mins

In the labyrinth of state secrecy, even the watchers are watched. But who's watching the watchers watching the watchers? Welcome to Hungary, Christmas 1957. The state, shaken and insecure by the failed counterrevolution of 1956 and prodded by a renewed Stalinist atmosphere, has decreed that all security personnel must take an exam to challenge and verify their loyalty. But to be effective in this shadowy world of suspicion and lies, of secrets within secrets, where nothing and no one can be trusted, the subjects must be unaware they are being tested. Focused on the secret machinations of a totalitarian state's paranoid need for absolute control, The Exam is a fascinating, Kafka-esque portrait of an era gone by - but it's a mindset still very much active today. - Charlie Cockey