Autumn Agenda

Warning: contains images of violence against animals.

“Old and New at the Obor Market” could be the title of this first story out of the three that make up part c. of Newsreel Issue 42/1956. Filmed between the Market Square and the Obor Hall, and directed by Nina Behar (a graduate of VGIK in Moscow who left Sahia in the early 1970s for Israel, and later France), “Autumn Agenda” brings a refreshing sense of vitality and the hustle and bustle of life, leaving the viewer wishing the segment was longer. The opening images offer a vibrant snapshot of market life at the outdoor market – see the shot featuring a bag with a goose, fresh juice, and traditional sandals (opinci) for sale. The later sequence filmed inside the newer, covered Obor Halls – constructed in 1950 under the direction of architect Horia Creangă, to sell produce from Romania’s state agricultural and collective farms – introduces a stark shift in mood, lacking the sounds and the personalities of the market outside. The lively scenes from the peasant market make a brief return at the end but they are too short to make a significant impact in a story that, we assume, was expected to emphasize the new rather than focus on the “remnants of the past.”

To preserve the integrity of the segment, we have included the other two sub-topics that form part of the “Autumn Agenda” segment, despite our ethical reservations about the second story, which focuses on a bear hunt in the Rodna Mountains. Bringing archival images into the present requires contextualization to mediate its transition between the past and the present. In this case, the violent images of the bear hunt—treated in 1956 as an entertainment topic, with the humorous tone of the commentary accentuating this view—may prove difficult for today’s viewers to watch. Contemporary audiences are generally more sensitive to scenes of violence against animals, and such images may no longer align with current cultural norms regarding their acceptability. For this reason, we have included a warning at the beginning of the text. (If you prefer to skip this segment, it runs from 1’43” to 2’58”.)

The third segment is dedicated to a fashion festival held in October 1956 in Bucharest, attended by craft cooperatives from Hungary and Bulgaria. We cannot help but notice the (somewhat “bourgeois”) elegance of the models, nor forget that it was filmed just a few weeks before the beginning of the Hungarian revolution against the Soviet-controlled Hungarian government.