Through a keyhole: phantasmal images of blood libel

The following study focuses on Miklós Erdély’s 1975 film Version. The film revives the age-old myth of the blood accusation against Jews and its modern, nineteenth-century iteration, the Tiszaeszlár Blood Libel of 1882, placing it within a contemporary context. Although Version explicitly portrays Jews drawing the blood of a Christian child, by representing the purported crime scene after scene, this film is neither antisemitic propaganda nor arbitrary provocation; on the contrary, it provides an unconventional criticism of nationalist and antisemitic discourse. The unfolding phantasmal character of the film is accompanied by a self-reflexive critique of the cinematic image, which renders Version into something that is, by far, not a vampire movie but instead an experimental film that operates with ideologically critical motifs: it links the critique of antisemitic ideology with the critique of the ideological function of the cinematic image.