Hic

Hukkle (2002), written and directed by György Pálfi, fits into no

genre. It's a Hungarian film, with almost no dialogue, and it's truly

unique.

The work "hukkle" is an attempt to imitate the sound of a hiccup.

Throughout a movie--set in a rural Hungarian village--an old man

sits by the side of a road and hiccups. Meanwhile, life in and

around the village goes on as people eat, work, and play.

Despite the idyllic nature of the landscape, something bad is

happening in the village. A police officer is investigating a crime,

and the director appears to be providing clues for us about what's

happening and why.

I never solved the mystery. The film curator at the George

Eastman House in Rochester--where the film was screened-- told us he

had seen the movie five or six times, and would explain the

mystery to us after we'd watched the film. When he gave us his

explanation, many members of the audience disagreed with him.

Maybe you have to see the movie five times to get it, or maybe after five

viewings you lose it.

According to the curator, this film is due out on DVD, and it's worth

finding and watching. Hukkle is strange, and somewhat

disturbing, but it's not boring.

The setting for this most unsettling of films from 27 year old director, Gyorgy Palfi, is a tiny village somewhere in Hungary. The scene is one of bucolic

boredom - at least that's what you might think, if you don't pay attention. We see an old man sitting outside his house: he has the hiccups. We see a girl feeding a dog while listening to music through a headset. Men play a game of skittles. A man herds a pig down a street. Woman busily at work in a clothing factory. A

husband and wife and their children, sit down to lunch. A mole burrows, and

hens peck for worms. Palfi's camera lovingly observes these rituals of everyday life: farm machinery, insects at work, flowers blossoming, a lone jet fighter screams overhead. Pigs mate, meals are carefully prepared, then hungrily

consumed. A body lays rotting on the bottom of a lake, while above, a couple

fish for their dinner. A cat dies of poison meant for humans. People die. Funerals are held. There is a serial killer about. There is no dialogue, but the soundtrack teems with a veritable chorus of machinery whirring, bees humming, pigs

grunting, moles scratching. Never does one's attention flag during the film's economical 75 minutes running time. This is one 'out of the box', allright. 7 out of 10

Hukkle is the first feature film of hyper-talented young director Gyorgy Palfi, and is a real masterpiece, the likes of which very rarely come out of the hands of a lively, extroverted 30-year-old. It is one of a kind, cannot really be compared to anything before it; you better judge it by itself. Hukkle does not have dialog or narration at all, what it has is pure rhythm. An old man who sits out in front of his country shack in rural Hungary starts hiccuping, thus setting the pace of the film. If one pays the attention Hukkle deserves, finds out that beyond the series of beautifully breathtaking pictures and unique sound effects the feature does have an underlying story unfolding. A murder mystery to be precise. Cinematorgaphy is at its best, while the mostly amateur cast makes the piece very documentary-like. This is wonder captured on film. A must see for all movie-admirers. It makes me very proud I once knew the guy who is to be credited for all this excitement.

...and even then the Hukkle keeps its own regular rhythm at the very end.

As a kid, I remember there used to be a visual game in magazines where a photograph zoomed in extremely tight or shot from an odd angle was presented, and you had to guess what the object was. This film features many such shots...and in its speechless stroke of genius, the story itself is presented that way as well.

Let me state that this movie is clearly not for everyone, at first it reminded me of the beloved Ann Arbor Film Festival, which hosts many fine but often fiercely independent short films. But "Hukkle", while succeeding in its artful attack, moves beyond that.

But it does so slowly...

The film moves almost at the pace of the tiny Hungarian village where it was mostly shot. Indeed from the DVD extras, I get the sense that Gyorgy Palfi wanted to have the film linger even longer in spots. The (human) actors are all non-professional; while I believe the pig, cat, snake, mole and frog were all professional. The frog also was apparently delicious, at least according to the famished catfish.

I really want to resist saying more, I'm just trying to figure out a way to direct the people who would enjoy this film toward it. I suspect that if you ever entertained notions of attending film school, you would enjoy this. Rambunctious creativity is on display, as it was in "Daisies" which I recently watched and reviewed. Similarly, just seeing a village might appeal to some folks like myself living in the United *Sprawl* of America.

In that village, we see some folks living with plastic sheets as part of their homes. I don't think this could have been made anywhere ...nor by anyone else. Palfi's approach on screen is gentle but, I don't know, proudly peculiar?? Or maybe peculiarly proud? He likely was a city mouse out in the country, but he was welcomed in to their wine caves, their apiaries and those plastic thatched houses, but more importantly the lives of the sturdier folks occupying them.

With the DVD you get a couple of bonus tracks, the subtitled commentary by Palfi and his cinematographer was very insightful on several levels. It almost seemed at times like the film was not only a riddle from Palfi to us the audience, but a puzzling challenge to Gergely Poharnok and the rest of the crew!

Additionally Palfi's voice, it's genuinely genial tone but never mawkishly so, while I don't speak Hungarian, I was curious to see him interact with the villages...and that is also in the Extras!

I eagerly look forward to more of his work, the Taxidermist is not readily available yet...but hopefully soon. Oh, and here is a plug for having Palfi film an adaptation of "The Thought Gang" - a fine book by Tibor Fischer!

This film has grown from a 6 to a 7.5/10 for me...still rising!!

Thurston Hunger

Two more comments...

1) Would love to track down the music (and field recordings) to this.

2) Funniest scene in the film...the very un-Hollywood police chase!!

It's hard to describe this film. It's quite unique. The closest I can compare it to are maybe the Cremaster films of Mathew Barney, but it's really something all of its own.

Hukkle is kind of a symphony of sights and sounds, without any real dialogue. It's just rhythms and patterns and cause and effect, and it's very very cool. Often funny, often disturbing, always fascinating. It's sort of like a nature documentary, with humans as just one of the subjects, just one part of the ecosystem. And underneath it all, there's a strange murder mystery.

I saw this film as part of the Seattle International Film Festival. I hope it gets a wider release, because I'd like to see it again. I want to work out some of the details that I missed the first time through.