Glass Tiger

A snack stand at the side of a road is where six friends spend their days. Lali owns the stand and dreams of America; the others steal cars, run small swindles, play the saxophone or do nothing at all. When Lali buys an old Chevrolet Impala the dream looks like it might come true, but a lorry flattens the car before it ever gets on the road. Around the same time one of the friends gets into serious trouble over a piece of scrap he sold. It became a cult comedy in Hungary and stands on dialogue rather than plot; its lines are still in everyday speech there. Two sequels followed. The story arrives nowhere, which is deliberate: the film is looking at how time passes in the provinces, at nobody going anywhere and everybody having got used to it. America here is not a plan but something forever discussed and never done.