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Explanation for Everything (2023, Gábor Reisz)
Sometimes the things of politics are actually the things of the heart. It’s summer in Budapest and student Abel is about to take his final exams. His parents repeatedly urge him to study thoroughly, as today one can no longer achieve anything in Hungary without a higher school qualification. And in fact, Abel has most of the subjects pretty well under control — he only knows next to nothing about history, and unfortunately he can’t concentrate on studying at the moment. Because, as we learn from the subtitle of the first chapter of this epic film: on Monday Abel realizes that he is in love.
On the eve of his high school graduation exams 18-year-old Ábel is a nervous wreck; weren’t we all on the first true crossroads of our lives? He is quite confident about most subjects, but it is History that he fears, not in the least because his parents drill him on specifically this subject. It is a timely film in an era of increasing polarization and unwillingness to listen to ‘the other side’, seen through a non-judgmental lens that we could all use every once in a while, before we step into our next heated conversations about politics. Patriotism, polarization, the role of media in politics, the reverberations of history. Explanation for Everything, the third feature of Hungarian director Gábor Reisz, bites a lot of big themes off, but miraculously manages to chew them all, and with nuance to boot.
Larry (2022, Szilárd Bernáth)
The film tells the story of a rapper living on the margins of society and working on a livestock farm, turning it into a socio-drama of elemental power. His father is planning to take out a loan to buy a plot of land, but Larry, who stutters due to childhood abuse, has other plans: he writes lyrics about his situation and personal trials and tribulations, which he has so far performed to the bleating sheep at his workplace for lack of anything better to do. Thanks to a strange coincidence, he meets Csala Do, with whom he records his first song, which is entered into an online talent contest. The shy, introverted boy has to contend not only with the situation, but also with his police officer father and his new stepmother, while becoming increasingly involved in the local underground community.
On Body and Soul (2017, Ildikó Enyedi)
A bizarre and brutal tale of lovers in the slaughterhouse. In this strange, unsettling romance, a Hungarian abattoir provides the backdrop for an affair between two workers that exists only when they sleep. On Body and Soul is an urban pastoral. It’s a love story that unfolds both in a secret inner dreamscape and an outer world of ostensible normality — which is actually far more comically irrational. This duality could be the one hinted at in the title. But which is body and which soul? Where do we assume the spirituality and physicality are located? It’s not entirely clear.
The Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi won the Golden Bear in Berlin with the film, perhaps her most notable success since winning the Camera d’Or at Cannes in 1989 for My Twentieth Century, about identical twin sisters heading for an appointment with destiny and modernity aboard the Orient Express. This movie has the same playfully unexpected sensuality that My Twentieth Century was praised for. Its eroticism has something of the Czech author Milan Kundera.
Wild Roots (2021, Hajni Kis)
Wild Roots is one of the most memorable Hungarian feature film debuts of recent years. Hajni Kis’s first work is an excellent example of how it is possible to make good Hungarian cinema even with a simple story, little money, and amateur actors. The 31-year-old director has already achieved success with her short films, and her first feature film, Wild Roots, premiered in Karlovy Vary, where it was well received, and won the audience award at the CineFest Miskolc International Film Festival. One of the main characters in Wild Roots, is twelve-year-old Niki, who struggles with behavioral problems and is raised by her grandparents. When she learns that her father, Tibor, has been released from prison, she contacts the man who works as a bouncer. Tibor is struggling financially, is quick-tempered, and although he is not initially happy about the reappearance of his long-lost daughter, he tries to mend their relationship.
Slowly but surely, they grow closer to each other, while previously unspoken traumas come to the surface. At first glance, father and daughter seem to be completely different characters. One of them disciplines drunk partygoers in nightclubs — or, if necessary, beats them bloody — while living from one day to the next. The other desperately tries to fit in with her peers, covering up the absence of a loving family with lies. The two self-willed characters are in constant conflict with their own environment and find support in each other. The film tells the story of these two lonely, emotionally wounded characters finding each other in a modern, realistic tone.
White Palms (2006, Szabolcs Hajdu)
If there is such a thing as a Hungarian sports film, then Szabolcs Hajdu’s White Palm is definitely one of its outstanding examples. At the same time, as is usually the case with the best sports films, White Palm is not specifically about sports. In these films, sports— like boxing, according to Scorsese — are «an allegory of the theater of life»: both sports films and sports in general can be said to be carriers of metaphorical meanings, «closely linked to social meanings», i.e., their meaning is inseparable from their social, cultural, and historical context.
Miklós Dongó arrives in Canada as a coach to rebuild his life after his promising gymnastics career was cut short by injury. However, his style and habits make it questionable whether he will be able to fit into this new world and meet the new challenges. First and foremost, he must confront his own unresolved past and roots — a joyless childhood spent within the walls of a gymnasium and the ghosts of the past.