I’ve always liked old horror movies, but I never really was a silent film enthusiast. I just found them too artsy and strange to really enjoy. It’s like watching a talkies era movie where everybody has been replaced by mimes and with awful camera quality. Though you have to respect movies like Nosferatu and The Golem for still being so iconic and getting Blu-ray releases, and thanks to internet forums I do have some knowledge on the matter.
Anyway, have you ever heard stories of those obscure Eastern-European museums that supposedly house all kinds of long lost prints? I did. And I thought it was unlikely too.
I was on vacation in Budapest to visit some distant relatives, which I hadn’t seen in years. My family has lived in the US since the 1910’s, so I had never even been in Hungary before, though my third cousin and his wife had come over to the US a couple of times. It was my first night in Budapest, and I was staying in a low-budget hotel just outside the inner city. When I woke up, the first thing I saw was the snow that gently covered everything outside. After getting up, I decided that I’d check out some famous landmarks first, since my appointment with my third cousin wasn’t until tomorrow
After seeing some famous landmarks and watching western-influenced buildings and Soviet concrete slabs make way for each other many times, I decided it was time go back to my hotel room. I was already nearing the area when I stumbled upon an advertisement.
It was a faded poster that drew my attention because of the strange black-and-white images on it, depicting a sad, mime-like face surrounded by what must have been stills from old movies. Above it there was some Cyrillic writing I couldn’t understand. Not very inviting. I was about to move on when I saw that there was a small English translation below, which said:
“Budapest Institute for Silent Film: Miracles of Modern Age!”
I chuckled. Didn’t seem very impressive. So I went on to my apartment and texted a bit with my colleagues, until I dropped myself on the bed, bored shitless. I studied the patterns on my bed sheets as I thought of everything I had seen today. But eventually even that didn’t save me from boredom, until the image of the old poster popped up in my head again. What was that thing for anyway?
Probably just some old movies, what else could it be? Books? Racing cars? The poster was obvious enough. Not that I’d would get to see any of that anyway, those prints had to be nearly dead. Or maybe I would, and it would be one of those crazy German flicks. I started to get curious. Maybe there would be some exclusives that were never put online.
“Screw it.” I thought. It couldn’t be worse than just sitting on my ass here the entire time, could it? So at about 3 o’clock I went back outside to where I saw the poster. The sad mime’s eyes greeted me from the distance and I could barely make out the address under all the stills. I will not display it here. I want nobody else to go through this, not even those who are morbidly curious to the point of stupidity.
After some research I finally found the location of the street on the map. The only thing I’ll say about it is that it was far out of Budapest itself. I took a bus ride through the snowy streets, beautiful fields and eventually the bus dropped me off at what looked like an old warehouse in quarter filled with old, featureless concrete buildings. This really didn’t seem like the place for an art museum. For a moment I considered just waiting for the next bus to pick me up again, but I was too curious now. I didn’t come all this way for nothing.
As I looked around a bit, I noticed that this part of the city seemed to quiet. I saw barely any people on the street, and when I did it was usually a homeless person quietly walking by, treating me as if I didn’t exist. The buildings looked faded, either out of use or just straight out abandoned.
