Taxidermie

Beginning in World War II-era Hungary, two soldiers stay at a remote country home. The sexually frustrated soldier Vendel (Csaba Czene) concerns himself with myriad masturbation techniques while watching his commanding officer's wife and daughters. The product of his frequent seed spillage, Kálmán (Gergo Trócsányi), grows to comfort his country as a champion eater. While the International Olympic Committee refuses to recognize his sport, Kalman remains stolid and captures the heart of Gizella (Adél Stanczel), a fellow female champion. Their heir, Lajos (Marc Bischoff), has not inherited an ounce of his parents' impressive girth. This sickly lad lives a life of quiet desperation as a taxidermist. A disappointment to his corpulent father, Lajos finds a few lucky solutions to solve his problems.

Following these three generations of fairly twisted fellows, TAXIDERMIA is light on plot but heavy on visuals. Visceral often to the point of being gross, few bodily fluids and orifices go unseen in Palfi's sophomore feature effort. Recommended.

Gyorgy Palfi's second feature Taxidermia is definitely a milestone in Hungarian film-making, it is a truly astonishing experience and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone wanting to broaden their taste for cinema. I found the film to be a deep black comedy with some stomach churning, twisted scenes intermixed with beautiful artwork and sophomore characters.

Through chronicling the lives of three generations of one family (a soldier from the Second World War, a sportsman and a taxidermist) each is shown to have their own perverse and distorted lifestyle which is cleverly exhibited through (among other approaches), myriad masturbation, excessive gluttony, deformation, dismemberment and taxidermy. In this film Palfi has created a deviant and anomalous world and, via his own talented cinema techniques, has managed to depict it in a shrewdly reflective manner i.e. he holds a mirror up to our own. Those familiar with European cinema will be able to reminisce with the many influences on show, with some scenes even harking back to Pasolini's epic, Salo - this is also combined with many other surreal influences. Some would argue that Taxidermia is a gory, violent and unnecessarily eccentric film but it is all necessary in serving its narrative and is not present for titillation purposes - as is so often found in some of the more contemporary European cinema.

Generally I feel that Taxidermia tells of a society in which defect, sleaze and dishonesty serves its creators own personal vision or goal to further themselves and that this search justifies everything, regardless of how twisted or harmful. In addition to this journey Taxidermia presents the audience with some of the ugliest and darkest places of the human mind. Without saying anymore, I would even go so far to say that Taxidermia is one of the greatest feats of 21st century movie-making.

Taxidermia is the goriest, most disturbing and most disgusting film I have ever seen, yet is one of the greatest feats in 21st century movie-making. It is dark and repugnant, but very deliberately so. It is not at all self-indulgent, although it might seem that at first glance. However, 30 minutes into the film one cannot help but realize that all this gore is meant with purpose, that this sickening texture of coherence is what gives this satire its peculiar authenticity. L'art pour l'art gruesomeness really gets my goat, but in this case everything falls into its right place. Although I got physically sick watching it, I have to admit I am an admirer of Taxidermia.

We see three generations of men from a strange family: an army orderly obsessed with one-sided sex, his son, an acclaimed speed-eater, and an animal preparator. They are all peculiarly abnormal in their own ways but so is everybody else in the twisted world Gyorgy Palfi has created. But we all know that however deviant a world is on screen it merely is a reflection of our even more deviant everyday life. What Palfi tries to put across is that in our society sick is not even sick any more, dementia is not dementia any more, and we are ready to accept any defect or corruption of mind as long as they serve the self right in his quest for creating something new, something with which he can stand out from the crowd even more. Search for the inner genius justifies everything.

• Don't watch this while eating
• Don't watch this with other people
• Don't watch this if there's even just a risk of people walking past the screen while it's on
• Don't watch this if surgery scenes make you squeamish
• Don't watch this if taxidermy creeps you out
• Don't watch this if full nudity makes you uncomfortable
• Don't watch this if you hate scenes where people vomit on-camera

If you can prepare for/ handle all of the above, then do watch this, because it's.... something, alright.

A soldier with a rich sexual fantasy and lots of time on his hands (or better said, with his hands). An obese man competing in eating contests. A taxidermist. What do they have in common? Well.. Quite simply put.. Part of their genes. They are, respectively, the grandfather, the father and the son. Welcome to Taxidermia, perversity grand central.

The film plays out in three parts. Starting with the soldier, followed by the obese man, followed by the taxidermist. At the end of each part the connection to the next is worked out, and it all makes sense, in a twisted way.Each of the parts is a barrel of laughs, dark and grim in its own. Often disgusting and revolting but most of the time just hilariously cynical.

Effects used are mediocre at best but that doesn't harm the film too much - it is mostly the comedy value that is to be appreciated. Way of filming is off the beaten track, but not so far that it becomes disturbing or genuinely brilliant.

Sick, gruesome and deviant. I love it.

9 out of 10 kilograms of lard eaten