Schatten der Liebe

I know the novel of the same title by Pál Závada very well and was thus excited to see the filmed version. The film disappointed me horribly. I didn't want it to be of the same quality as the novel, but it could have been nevertheless a good film. I saw it with some friends - some who had read the novel and some who had not -, but still all of us thought the film was terrible. It is too long, it never stirs real emotion and has too many sex scenes which are neither erotic nor emotional, but get more and more ridiculous.

The good points were again - as in many Hungarian films - the formal things: nice camerawork and set design, the lovely town of Tótkomlós as the backdrop of the story, authentic costumes. Most performances were also quite good: Ildikó Tóth was in my opinion the perfect actress to play Jadviga. Unfortunately, Roman Luknár was miscast as Franci - you just couldn't believe that this was the person Jadviga is so terribly attracted to sexually. Viktor Bodó could have been good as Ondris, but his exaggerated and strenuous performance was one of the most unnerving things about the film.