The Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe spread to Hungary in 1956, less than 20 years after that country endured a trying occupation by the Nazis. In 1983, Hungarian filmmaker Pál Sándor worked around a government-imposed ban on criticisms of the country's recent history to make Daniel Takes A Train, a romantic drama set in the mid-'50s transitional era. Péter Rudolf stars as a love-struck teenager who joins his soldier buddy Sándor Zsótér on a trip to Vienna. Rudolf is looking for girlfriend Katalin Szerb, who fled their crumbling hometown with her wealthy family, while Zsótér hides from the Russian troops who defeated his countrymen. Sándor emphasizes the cultural asphyxiation of 20th-century Hungary through his constant use of close-ups, in locations already crowded with cranky characters. The central section of Daniel takes place on a packed train, an image with extra resonance, given that Rudolf and several of the people he meets are Jewish, with memories of the cramped trains that led their people to the Holocaust. Sándor's subtle visual comparison between life under the Nazis and life under the Soviets managed to escape the state censors, as did some of his wry jabs at his countrymen's complacency. (A man in a Santa suit explains the appeal of fascist regimes by claiming, "Everyone believes in Santa, so long as they keep getting presents.") But it's surprising that Sándor got away with some of the more harrowing passages aboard the train, where military police patrol the cars to round up dissidents and defectors. At one point, a character laments the game of skulking and pretending that goes on between the citizens and their government: "If we could just lie with a wink," he says, "so that they would know that we know that they know." With Daniel Takes A Train, Sándor tells the truth about the exhaustion and frustration that sets in when a nation fails to maintain its sovereignty. But he does so with a wink, implying that there's an undeniable power and romance in taking on the mantle of oppression.