SZABO FLAP FLUSTERS FIRST-NIGHTERS IN BUDAPEST AT MAGYAR FILMSZEMLE
February 6, 2006

The opening night of the Hungarian film week at the Budapest Congress Centre turned out to be more of a political than a cinematic event. "Rokonok" (Relatives), the eagerly awaited new film by Hungary's leading filmmaker, Istvan Szabo -- his first Hungarian language film since 1992 -- was scheduled to open the festivities, but just a few days prior to the opening an article appeared in a prestigious literary magazine casting serious doubts upon director Szabo's past political integrity. To put it bluntly, the article accused the director of having been a spy -- a fink, an informer -- for the Secret Police in Communist Hungary. Szabo did not deny the allegation but explained that back in his film school days in the mid-fifties (specifically, from 1956 to 1963) he was forced to play the role of an informer on fellow film students to save his life. But, says Szabo, he only "played the role" giving the police useless information or dis-information, which in one particular case actually saved the life of a fellow filmmaker under surveillance (Pál Gábor, long since deceased of natural causes). Therefore, claims Szabo, he has nothing to be ashamed of. Many other people were forced into similar positions and he is even thinking of making a film about the thankless situation he found himself in at that dark time in Hungarian history.

This all being water long under the dam, and, in any case, far less serious than say, the behavior of a Hollywood filmmaker like Elia Kazan who gave the names of colleagues suspected of Communist affiliation to the Great Inquisitor, Senator Joe Macarthy, in the Hollywood witch hunting days, one would think there would be no reason for a sudden Big Stink here in Budapest ... one would think. In the event, the article in "Élet és Irodalom" (Life and Lierature) by a well known critic cast a sudden pall over the opening night gala with tension in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife. There were even rumors to the effect that the Rokonok film would be canceled or that Szabo would not show up for his own premiere in order to avoid having to take the heat from deriders and unwell-wishers.

As things turned out Mr. Szabo did indeed show up in the midst of a charged atmosphere and a crowd consisting of the cream of Hungarian society including Prime Minister Ference Gyurcsány and former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, now leader of the opposition. As Szabo took his seat in the balcony of the auditorium a line of dignitaries headed by the prime minister himself formed to shake the directors’ hand and offer their best wishes (condolences?). Viktor Orbán, interviewed on the spot by TV, stated that he had come specifically with the opportunity in mind of meeting the famous director whom he greatly admires. To top it all off a manifesto signed by many of the most important people in the film business was solemnly read proclaiming their support for a great artist who has done so much to promote Hungarian culture world-wide. Given the tension in the air and the parade of dignitaries within the hall, the film itself was almost an anti-climax. The conclusion of the screening was greeted with hearty applause as another large crowd, those unable to secure last minute tickets, milled around in the bitter cold outside.

According to a leading Hungarian film critic, György Báron, the film itself was a reasonable rendition of the Moricz Zsigmond classic but not quite up to the standard of some of Szabo's earlier masterpieces. Particularly outstanding was Russian actor, Oleg Tabakov, but, said Báron, young actor Sándor Csányi (hero of the much aclaimed film "Kontrol", two years ago) was a bit out of his depth in the all important central role of this film alongside a cast of far more experienced thespians such as Károly Eperjes, Ildikó Tóth, Ferenc Kállai, and Czech veteran Jiri Menzel. Oddly enough, the story of "Rokonok", dealing with corruption in a small Hungarian town nearly a hundred years ago, seems loaded with relevance to the kind of political infighting going on at the present time in Hungary.

The cinematographer was top Hungarian lensman Lajos Koltai, who has worked with Szabo on 18 other features and debuted as a director himself last year with "Fateless" (Sorstalanság), based on the Imre Kertész nobel prize-winning concentration camp novel. Koltai's "Fateless", which didn't get very high marks here last year at this time, nor at the 2OO5 Berlin film festival, has just opened in New York where it is enjoying a much warmer reception. Distance, both cultural and geographical, sometimes makes the broth taste richer ...

Other films viewed on the following days included "Taxidermia", an exceedingly repulsive (though not uninteresting) film by György Pálfi, the young director of "Hukkle" which caused quite a stir in 2OO2, the beautifully poetic "Bird Saviour, Clouds and Wind" by debuting helmer István Szaladják, and a most interesting documentary on the Spanish Civil War by veteran documentarian Péter Forgács. Details on these films in my next report.


MAGYAR FILM REVUE: FROM THE RIDICULOUS TO THE SUBLIME
by Alex Deleon, Budapest, -- February 13, 2006
for

New Hungarian features on view here range from the utterly ridiculous to the utterly sublime. At the ridiculous extreme is "TAXIDERMIA" by "Hukkle" director Pálfi György, while on the sublime side of the spectrum is the ethereally sensuous "The Bird Saviour, Clouds and Wind", by first time director István "Taikyo" Szaladják.

"Taxidermia" doesn't have much to do with the art of taxidermy (although a taxidermist does make a brief appearance toward the end), but has everything to do with force feeding of fat people, voluminous streams of regurgitation, masochistic self-torture with candle flames, and graphically disgusting butchering of a pig. It seems that upcoming young director Pálfi is out to make an indelible impression on the local film scene by outdoing John Waters in shock effect, Bunuel in acid satire, and Peter Greenaway in sheer disgust. Missing from his film, however, is Waters' sense of humor, Bunuel's subtlety, and Greenaways erudition.

The film starts out with a long dark sequence involving a sexually perverted soldier who revels in tickling the tenderest portions of his anatomy with candle flames when not engaged in other acts of sexual aberration with a constantly turgid purple penis. He is ordered about by a screaming, sadistic unteroffizier of some sort, which is perhaps meant to be a wry commentary on military discipline but comes off as a wry commentary on nothing. Fortunately this gruesome soldat is killed off with a quick bullet to the head some twenty minutes into the picture, whereupon we segue into the main part of the film -- a series of public gluttony competitions in which extremely obese people slop up messes of food from wooden trowels as fast as they can -- sloshing their faces in the mess as they go -- and then, with the help of assistants, vomit it all out as fast as they can, to get ready for another round of ravenous scarfing -- and then another round of puking ... and so forth. We focus on a particular extra fat couple who apparently are vying for the sloppiest scarfers in the world title, and they have a professional trainer to hone their skills. Somewhere in between there is a graphic hog vivisection where the hot steaming innards are pulled out in full camera close-up, and then the bloody butchered carcass is blackened over an outdoor fire. Perhaps this is meant to be a sardonic comment on the primitive ritual of Pig Killing (diszno ölés) traditional in many Hungarian villages at certain times of the year. On and on it goes -- more gluttony, more vomiting, and lots of blood and guts whenever possible.

Personally I had gotten the basic message after the third or fourth stream of hot vomit --very realistically done, I must say, with none of the conventional gentility of ordinary films when a character gets sick to his stomach -- and considered hitting the exit several times long before the halfway mark, but for some reason, maybe just an excercise in patience and self discipline, I decided to stick it out until the bitter end, just to see how much vomit I could take without flinching -- and I did finally make it. If this was supposed to be a black comedy I did not hear a single chuckle the entire time, although oddly enough, there were no walkouts from the packed theater. A kind of mass hypnotism or something -- who can say? I was told later that some people actually liked the movie, or at least thought it was interesting. I guess even in Hungary "different strokes for different folks" is a valid bromide. I am most curious to see what kind of business this film will do in the commercial cinemas when and if it is released, or escapes. So much for the ridiculous. By the way, the music wasn't bad ... and, come to think of it, just for the cachet attached to the director's name and the blatant in-your-faceness of it all, "Taxidermia" may pack its way into some festivals -- especially the ones dedicated to horror and bad taste.

On the sublime side of things, "The Bird Saviour, Clouds and Wind" (Madárszabadító, Felhõ, Szél) is as polarly opposite from "Taxidermia" as it is possible to get and still stay in this Universe. This film is extremely slow with long lingering images of wispy summer clouds and amazingly beautiful stretches of yellow fields -- Van Gogh yellow -- framing the story of a gentle Russian pilgrim who releases trapped birds as he goes. The saintly pilgrim meets a teenage boy out in these fields and tries to convey some of his peaceful philosophy and poetry to the youngster, to little avail. Eventually a cartload of grubby Peasants from the local village arrive carrying wooden cudgels with which they beat the bird releaser to death. However, this is such a gentle film that even the fatal beating is barely seen as it takes place in the distance in high grass obscuring the violence. All this is, of course, very symbolic (the nail that sticks out must be battered down!) but the story, what there is of it, is completely secondary to the incredibly beautiful visual effect and the music is also ethereal. Most unusual for a Hungarian film is that all the actors and all the dialogue is in Russian (with Hungarian subtitles). I asked the director "Why Russians", and where exactly in Russia was this filmed?". The answer: It was not filmed in Russia at all, but in the Badacsony hills area of Hungary and, although the scenario was written in Hungarian director Szaladják says that there was something about that simply cried out for a Russian setting and Russian voices. Robert Ovakimjan is, in fact, not an actor but a Russian-Armenian painter of some note, and some of the others were amateurs. In any case an extremely beautiful and metitative film to watch and an ode to the Art of filmmaking. This is "Taikyo" Szaladják's first turn as a director, but he has a rather lengthy career behind him as a cameraman. He was, in fact, the cinematographer on another film in the Szemle. While this can be regarded as an esthetic masterpiece, "Bird Saviour" is perhaps not a film for the non-beatifically inclined. I however, found myself in esthetic thrall throughout, and Eva Zaoralová, artistic director of the Karlovy Vary film festival, who was in the audience, immediately came forward to earmark this one-of-a-kinder for her mid-summer Czech showcase.

In the documentary sector Péter Forgacs' new offering, "Perro Negro -- Stories from the Spanish Civil War", feature length at 84 minutes, is another feather in the cap of this unique Hungarian filmmaker. Péter has developed a documentary style in which he works with found footage, amateur film footage, even home movies -- which he then embeds in archival footage and/or newsreels to create a highly personal view and you-are-there feeling for historical events.Says Forgács, "For long decades the Spanish Civil War was something like a black and white Robert Capa photo to me. (NOTE: Capa, famous for his battlefront pictures of the war, especially in LIFE magazine, was a Hungarian from Budapest) -- my private Spanish adventure began in 1993 when I discovered the amateur films of Ernesto Noriega, some of them made in prison in the midst of the war". This brought hard questions to his mind about the fate of ordinary people who were just trying to survive in the murderous fratricide which became the prequel to World War II. The film was several years in development and was financed by Dutch and French producers.
For anyone with any interest at all in this most crucial period of the twentieth century "Black Dog" is a must-see film. Actually, it's like a full history course on the Guerra Civil packed into an hour and a half. Among the many unforgettable images, near the close during Franco's victory parade in Madrid, the skies are filled with formations of German "Black Condor" bombers -- the same airborne rats who did Guernica -- spelling out in the sky the letters F-R-A-N-C-O ... as the pint-sized generalissimo who would tyrannize Spain for the next 46 years, grins and gloats down below.


BUDAPEST PRIZES: TAXIDERMIA TRIUMPHS BUT SZABO IS LEFT HOLDING THE BAG
by Alex Deleon, for

And the winner was -- (don't hold your breath, just your noses) -- TAXIDERMIA! -- And not just the Grand Prize, named as "Best" Film from a field of 24 features by a jury including foreigners for the very first time -- but four other prizes, to wit: two best supporting roles, both male and female, best "visual design", and ex-aequo with "White Palm", the foreign critics Gene Moskovitz award. The best director award went, deservedly, to young Hajdu Szabolcs for "White Palm", best actor to Sándor Csányi for the comedy ""Just sex, and nothing else", (but, significantly, not for his central role in Szabo's "Rokonok"), and best actress to Orsi Tóth, for her work in a film called "Johanna".

The best first film prize went to Ágnes Kocsis for "Fresh Air" and the best screenplay award was shared by the three writers of "Sex, and nothing but", including the director, Krisztina Goda, who had a hand in the writing as well. Surprisingly, master director István Szabo, was left holding an empty bag -- not a single award of any kind, for his polished film "Rokonok" which had some excellent performances that were overlooked in favor of no-name actors from other films.
Péter Forgács walked off handily with the best documentary film prize for his superb "Black Dog -- tales from the Spanish civil war."

Regarding "TAXIDERMIA", which was, among other things, an experiment to see how much slop an audience can swallow at a single sitting, there was general agreement among the local cognoscenti that this was a "very strong" film, and well made, a "tour de force" of sorts by hot young director György Pálfi". At the closing party I asked Prof. Ferenc Takács of Elte University what he thought of it and he aptly described it as "a calculated provocation". It will be interesting to see if normal Hungarian audiences take to this "calculated provocation" when it is released commercially. Even the prizes which went to the supporting actors, Csaba Czene, and Ádel Stanczel respectively, seemed to me like some kind of insiders joke, for they had little else to do other than stroke each other and puke. Csaba, pronounced like the English word "chubby" seemed like an appropriate name for the obese "hero" who looks a bit like Herman Göring in his younger days, and actually did a good job of puking. I was told --something I missed when I watched an unsubtitled screening -- that this is a story of three generations based on a series of short stories by a Hungarian writer having certain affinities with Franz Kafka. The masochistic self burning soldier of Part OneI is, in the story, the father of the gormandic Göring look-alike in part two, and the taxidermist in the last apart of the film is the grandson. Part two, the stuff-yourself and vomit competition, takes place in the sixties, so maybe this is meant as some kind of statement about Communism -- but if it was, it was totally lost on me. All I saw was a lot of puke, a lot of blood, and a lot of disgusting looking people. Different strokes for different folks?

An interesting side note: "Sex and nothing else but", although basically a light comedy, has apparently been earmarked as a competition (sic) entry in the upcoming Cannes film festival by the Croisette representive who was here and obviously not only liked it, but thought it was Cannes competition worthy. One of the winning script writers, Gábor Heller, informed me that in the barely two months since this film has been out, it has completely swamped Hollywood blockbusters such as "King Kong" at the local box-office,(300,000 entries so far and still going strong), which is most unusual for a home-made film here. Asked to what he attributes the surprising runaway success of this film, Heller said, "Three things came together. A really tight script with a good story and no loose ends, (unlike most Hungarian comedies which tend to be dotty, spotty, and mere vehicles for popular local actors), a very good cast that really acted, and good direction". It's almost worth a trip to Cannes just to see what Ms. Goda's film will do there.
All in all, starting with the opening night tension around director Szabo's shady past and ending with the Taxidermia blow-out, this was one of the most interesting Magyar Film Szemles in many years and the emphasis on young blood seems to augur well for the future of cinema from this corner of Europe.
Alex, Budapest, February 9, 2OO6

Additional Hungarian film reviews from Cottbus in November:

Aside from the official focus on the Balkans, Hungarian films were strongly represented in the annual Cottbus review of East European cinema with three prize winners of the current year; the romantic comedy "Sex and Nothing But", the Gymnastics drama "White Palm" and the regurgitation orgy, "Taxidermia", grand prize winner this year in Budapest. Having seen the Hungarian box-office smash "Csak szex és más semmi" (Sex and Nothing But) only at a commercial screening in Budapest without benefit of subtitles, I was fortunate to catch up with it here in an English subtitled version. Produced by hotshot ex-patriot Hollywood Hungarian "Andy" (Andras) Vajna, the picture stars Judit Schell (32), Csányi Sándor, and Bodo Kata, and is directed by Krisztina Goda (B. 1970). Goda attended film school in England and this is her feature film debut. A delightful, perfectly-paced, romantic comedy in the tradition of the old Hollywood Screwball Comedies, this 2005 Hungarian production was the big hit of the year in Hungary and sold over 400.000 tickets on home territory during the past year.

Dora (Judit Schell) a feisty attractive blonde in her mid thirties, has had nothing but bad luck with men, hears her biological clock ticking and now wants nothing more than to bear a child and raise it without benefit of father -- before it's too late. She works as a theatrical dramaturg (script supervisor) on a new Hungarian production of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" where her buddy and roommate, Zsófi (the vivacious but cynical redhead, Kata Bodo), is the female lead, and Valmont, the hero is played by Tamas (Sandor Csanyi) who is, in real life, much like the Valmont character, an inveterate heart breaker who has bedded down half the girls in Hungary.

Dora places a sex ad in the personals stating that her aim is "just sex and nothing else". Of course, every loser and creep in sight turns up, much to her dismay. The news of the ad gets around and soon everybody she knows is vying for her attentions, including the actor Tamas, who first met her clad only in her birthday suit on the balcony of his apt. bldg. in the opening scenes. Though it is obvious that they are meant for each other she doesn't trust this skirt chaser as far as she can throw him, but finally allows herself to be seduced by him, just to plant the right seed. Other potential affairs intervene, and a muscular young Turkish Kebab dealer goes so far as to perform a naked snake dance for her on the landing before her apartment door. Just when it looks like she will marry a "safe" suitor and go off to Canada with him, best friend Zsófi tries to commit suicide. This confrontation with the near death of her best friend jars her into reality and she leaves the safe guy she doesn't love in the lurch and lurches off to serenade her true love Tamas under his balcony in the pre-dawn Budapest hours. Besides the central, chemically active love story between Schell and Csanyi the film is also notable for the way it portrays the female buddy relationship between the two women, Schell and Bodo.

Sexy actress Schell is an amazing discovery whose previous work has been limited mainly to theater and TV, but who is now all set, make no bones about it, for a lead-role career in forthcoming Magyar movies. Krisztina Bodo made a big splash in Vajna's 1997 hit comedy "The Straying Minister" and will also star opposite Csanyi in Vajna's highly touted upcoming 1956 Revolution drama "Szabadság, Szerelem" (Freedom and Love). Handsome, dark-haired, brooding Sándor Csányi, 31, is currently the hottest leading man in Hungarian cinema and was awarded the Best Actor of the year for his Tamas role in this film.

"White Palm" helmed by Szabolc Hajdu, is possibly the only feature film ever made whose central subject is the specialized athletic domain of Gymnastics. It follows the life of a talented young gymnast in the city of Debrecen who rebels against his sadistic coach in Communist Hungary, runs off to a Russian circus where he suffers a very bad injury, emigrates to Canada where he himself becomes a leading gymnastics coach, then, years later, returns to Debrecen for one last shot as a performer in international competition, whereupon, having proven his mettle once and for all against his arch Canadian rival-- goes back and joins a famous Canadian circus! -- (Le Cirque du Soleil). The gymnastics scenes, which take up a goodly portion of the total screentime, are especially realistic as both the director and his brother Zoltan Miklos Hajdu, who plays the hero, Dongo, at maturity, are highly trained gymnasts! Nothing like making a picture about an occupation you know something about...
"Taxidermia", the second film by "Hukkle" director György Palffi, is apparently intended not only to outrage the bougeoisie, but to test the theory that if you can baffle the critics enough with endless scenes of vomiting, they will declare your film a work of art. "Taxidermia" made enough people in Hungary puke this year to convince the critics that it was the "Best Film of the Year" --different shucks for different folks. All things considered, however, 2006 was not a bad year at all for the steadily reviving Hungarian cinema.

Alex Deleon
Filmfestivals.com correspondant