FARMHOUSE FILMS |
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THE RELUCTANT ADVENTURER
by Thomas Rejto
Outline
Thomas and his pals Istvan, Peter and Kacsa, form a group of pranksters and merrymakers. In 1939, when their story begins, they are 13 years old and study at the Marko street secondary school in Budapest. 1939 also marks the beginning of the war but it seems that its fulguration will spare Hungary.
The years pass and the teenagers mature into young men. The war also develops and spreads apprehension of misfortune. One day at a county fair, Thomas and Istvan, in the company of their heartthrob Magdi, decide to visit the fortuneteller to clarify their destinies. The sooth-sayer reluctantly predicts that Istvan will die at the age of twenty-six, not before, nor after.
Istvan takes the news in stride. He considers the fact that he can look forward to eight years of immortality. He engages in one adventure after the other. His friends are drawn into the quagmire; resistance, deportation, escape, partisan life, Russian prison, splendor, misery, travel and love affairs follow suit. Istvan lives each day to the fullest. Thomas, on the other hand, grows more and more concerned.
After an impressionable world tour, the two friends settle down in Paris. Istvan
sits at the local Café, drinking and calmly awaiting death. Thomas, worried as
always, contemplates his own destiny as The Reluctant Adventurer.