TFS - Week 4
So I'm finally getting around to last week's movie that we watched in my film class after dealing with visits from my brother, being gone, and pulling an all-nighter. So without further ado, the movie that we watched was a Hungarian film called Kontroll (an English site). This film has yet to be released in theaters in America (April 1st, I believe) but has had an extensive viewing at numerous film festivals, some of which it has won honors for. It's difficult to really explain the film or pinpoint the type of movie, not because it is a foreign film, but because it's so complex with several different stories running in parallel. All that I can say for certain is that I thought it was a great film, even if I did have to read it all.
The main premise of the film is that it follows the activities of a group of ticket checkers on the Hungarian metro system. These people have no real authority on the metro, all they can do is ask for a ticket and issue a fine. So part of the movie follows the disdain this one group of guys receive as part of their job. This covers a wide-range of aspects from a long extended chase scene through the metro to psychological evaluations to fighting, etc. There are several subplots involving a killer and a girl, but I won't share those here because it might spoil the film. Along with all these plot lines, there are several artistic features and sequences that give this movie a very "indie film" feel to it. The whole movie takes place in an actual metro after dark, so it's got a very dark tone about it. Because we are not from Hungary and aren't used to the system over there, it almost comes across as a work of science fiction of some parallel dimension. The best classification I can give it is:
Action/Suspence/Indy/Foreign/Comedy/Science Fiction.
After the movie we got to meet with the writer/director of the film, (we sure are getting a lot of writer/directors), Nimrod Antal. Despite this being a Hungarian film, Nimrod actually was born and raised in Los Angeles by Hungarian parents. He moved to Hungary for film school and has spent the rest of his time there shooting commercials. So despite this being a foreign film, he spoke English with no accent and we didn't have to worry about a language barrier. Actually, the first question posed to him from the audience was someone speaking in Hungarian, to the surprise of the class, so he responded in Hungarian as we looked dumb-founded around the room. It was nice to hear the perspective he had on the Hungarian side of filmmaking, compared to how films are made here. Apparently several well-known actors and directors from Hungary are in it with supporting roles or with just short cameos. He told us the ease of being able to do that there is incomparable to attempting to do that same thing here.
The entire film was made for about $800,000, which is very surprising. I guess this is sort of the definition of an independant film. But they used real metro stations as backdrops, working during closed hours (11pm - 5am) and had no special effects done, meaning that the stunts pulled are in fact real (there's a train that comes very close to hitting someone). Also, through some course of events, which are too long for me to get into now, an actor is chasing someone through the station with shaving cream on their face. They end up running at semi-full speed into a steel pillar and had to be taken to the hospital because their ear got cut off somehow. This scene is in the movie so when you see it, realize that it's not a planned stunt.
All in all I thought it was a great movie, despite it being a bit peculiar and despite the fact that you had to read your way through the movie. But foreign films aren't a problem for me and I actually like the ones I've seen. This one is no different and the music is particularly enjoyable (all techno beats from a now-disbanded group called Neo). So if you get the chance to see it (probably somewhere where they show indy/foreign films) I highly recommend it because I think it's definately worth seeing. It will be interesting to hear what people say about it tomorrow, because it was unusual. So that's what we watched last week, and I'll probably get around to what we watch tomorrow sometime this weekend.
The main premise of the film is that it follows the activities of a group of ticket checkers on the Hungarian metro system. These people have no real authority on the metro, all they can do is ask for a ticket and issue a fine. So part of the movie follows the disdain this one group of guys receive as part of their job. This covers a wide-range of aspects from a long extended chase scene through the metro to psychological evaluations to fighting, etc. There are several subplots involving a killer and a girl, but I won't share those here because it might spoil the film. Along with all these plot lines, there are several artistic features and sequences that give this movie a very "indie film" feel to it. The whole movie takes place in an actual metro after dark, so it's got a very dark tone about it. Because we are not from Hungary and aren't used to the system over there, it almost comes across as a work of science fiction of some parallel dimension. The best classification I can give it is:
Action/Suspence/Indy/Foreign/Comedy/Science Fiction.
After the movie we got to meet with the writer/director of the film, (we sure are getting a lot of writer/directors), Nimrod Antal. Despite this being a Hungarian film, Nimrod actually was born and raised in Los Angeles by Hungarian parents. He moved to Hungary for film school and has spent the rest of his time there shooting commercials. So despite this being a foreign film, he spoke English with no accent and we didn't have to worry about a language barrier. Actually, the first question posed to him from the audience was someone speaking in Hungarian, to the surprise of the class, so he responded in Hungarian as we looked dumb-founded around the room. It was nice to hear the perspective he had on the Hungarian side of filmmaking, compared to how films are made here. Apparently several well-known actors and directors from Hungary are in it with supporting roles or with just short cameos. He told us the ease of being able to do that there is incomparable to attempting to do that same thing here.
The entire film was made for about $800,000, which is very surprising. I guess this is sort of the definition of an independant film. But they used real metro stations as backdrops, working during closed hours (11pm - 5am) and had no special effects done, meaning that the stunts pulled are in fact real (there's a train that comes very close to hitting someone). Also, through some course of events, which are too long for me to get into now, an actor is chasing someone through the station with shaving cream on their face. They end up running at semi-full speed into a steel pillar and had to be taken to the hospital because their ear got cut off somehow. This scene is in the movie so when you see it, realize that it's not a planned stunt.
All in all I thought it was a great movie, despite it being a bit peculiar and despite the fact that you had to read your way through the movie. But foreign films aren't a problem for me and I actually like the ones I've seen. This one is no different and the music is particularly enjoyable (all techno beats from a now-disbanded group called Neo). So if you get the chance to see it (probably somewhere where they show indy/foreign films) I highly recommend it because I think it's definately worth seeing. It will be interesting to hear what people say about it tomorrow, because it was unusual. So that's what we watched last week, and I'll probably get around to what we watch tomorrow sometime this weekend.
posted by Chris Burzlaff @ 2/09/2005
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