Focus Country - Hungary. István Szabó Retrospective. Mephisto

Synopsis

Hendrik Höfgen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) is a passionate, ambitious German stage actor in the early 1930s who longs for fame. While initially apolitical and flirting with communist theatre, he remains in Germany during the Nazi rise to power to pursue his career. He achieves his dream of becoming a star by playing Mephistopheles in Faust. To maintain his status and security, Höfgen enters a Faustian bargain with the Nazi regime, becoming a favourite of high-ranking officials (modelled on Hermann Göring) and ignoring the persecution of his friends and the regime's brutality. The film highlights his descent from an ambitious artist to a tool of propaganda, who realizes too late that he has sold his soul.