Kontroll

CONTROL (Nimród Antal - Hungary 2003).

The film opens with a prologue featuring a real-life Budapest metro official declaring this film is in no way representative of Budapest's underground system, but nevertheless he's in full support (!) of this feature. Probably enscenated by the director, or he must be one hell of a charming fellow to convince the underground authorities in Budapest to allow this kind of endorsement.

This is a smart film. A cynical blender of genres and styles, completely in tune with the 21th century world of chaos, anarchy, despair and poverty we live in. It's a modern language. If this was American, it would define a generation. I'm positive it had this effect on many young Hungarians.

We have a closely confined space here: The Budapest underground rail system. Bulcsú, our main protagonist, is a controller in the Budapest metro. That's his job, leading a motley bunch of rival ticket inspectors. The film never comes above ground. Bulcsú never even leaves the system. He sleeps on the platforms, all he seems to eat or drink is coffee from the machines on the platforms. God knows what he lives on.

The crucial part is in the second half when Bulcsú meets an acquaintance of him on the platform, an middle-aged man who seems like a former professor of him or some kind of mentor. He is clearly embarrassed to run into him in the state he's in. What is it he's hiding from? He seems a well-educated young man. His acquaintance speaks of the promising young Bulcsú. Was he a promising scientist? What was his life like prior to the hellish job he does now? The rest, the extremely aggressive and unwilling passengers, rivalry among colleague ticket inspectors, even a shadowy serial killer who pushes unsuspecting travelers before trains, it's all a sideshow, but a brilliant one. The perfect backdrop for his troubled existence.

Sándor Csányi gives a brilliantly understated performance, perfectly in tune with the daylight-ridden world he lives in.

The silent scene where Bulcsú sits on a large ventilator shaft, echos Ridley Scott, a kind of existential ALIEN-film. Long tracking shots, a neon-lit world, an energetic techno-driven soundtrack. One can argue about the choice of music, the moral stance of the incredibly aggressive passengers but all is perfectly on par with the director's visual ideas. This director is in total control and knows how to express his ideas on film.

Very impressive, make sure you see this.

A small side-note: Nimród Antal, who grew up in LA, is currently finishing his latest film VACANCY, starring Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson, scheduled for US release on 20 April 2007 and, I can hardly believe it, a cinematic release in the Netherlands as well, scheduled for 19 July 2007). I expect the worst and hope for the best.

Camera Obscura --- 10/10

No bad.. There is a kind of relationship with Besson's "Metro" and Monory's "Meteo", but otherwise "Kontroll" is absolutely original. Sometimes to much the "lyre", but i think the "Kontroll" can be a new hungarian cult-movie.

What an unexpected pleasure! It doesn't happen very often to me that I go watch a movie completely in the dark; when I do, it's usually because somebody dragged me to it - as was the case here - and more often than not, I regret it afterwards. This was a very welcome exception. What a find! This movie has simply everything: great characters, superb cinematography, a kick-ass soundtrack; it's a comedy, a mystery thriller, a drama and a romance - and the performances and the direction are flawless. The main storyline follows Bulcsù, who is a ticket inspector for the Budapest subway. He lives in the dark, depressing tunnels below the city and never leaves them, having chosen his own personal hell after a life above which he seems to desperately want to forget. Bulcsù is a very ambiguous character and it's precisely the ambiguity and the symbolism of his story which make this film stand out for me. You have to fill in a lot of the blanks yourself and the further the story progresses, the more you're left wondering and guessing. I will not spoil anything here, but what makes me call this film great instead of just very good, is that there is a wide range of different interpretations possible for this marvelous movie, from the mainstream one to the dark and disturbing or even the religious - and they all work beautifully. Great, smart entertainment and outstanding cinema. 10 out of 10.

Favorite films: http://www.IMDb.com/list/mkjOKvqlSBs/

Lesser-known Masterpieces: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070242495/

Favorite Low-Budget and B-Movies: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls054808375/

Favorite TV-Shows reviewed: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls075552387/

"Kontroll" gives me new hope that Hungarian filmmakers are finally capable to make pictures that appeal to audiences at home, movie critics (and probably also foreign audiences) alike. An excellent, though a bit weird mixture of satirical comedy, mystical drama and thriller. The metro stations become a world of their own, the neon lights create a new reality.

While in the beginning the film focuses on a whole group of ticket controllers and we expect a satirical comedy about their lives, in the second half the storyline concentrates on the terrifying experiences of Bulcsú, a man with a mysterious past. He used to be an artist or in some other kind of creative business not specified further, but left this life for unknown reasons and started to live in the metro. It also becomes clear that for some reason he is not able to leave the metro system until the end - when he overcomes the dark forces (that probably have also been lurking inside him). Everything about this story is deeply irrational (except for the satirical elements that are in some ways very close to reality :-)), this is just a terrible world, where love means the only hope (I was a bit reminded of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil").

An excellent movie that I would also strongly recommend to foreign viewers. I don't know if this will ever come to other countries, but I would very much like it to be so. So that Hungary could be put back on the landscape of international moviemaking.

P.s.: The Budapest multiplex I saw this in was absolutely packed with people. I was astonished what a great success "Kontroll" has become in Hungary, because I think that most people in the audience there have probably never seen anything that could only remotely be called arthouse - and "Kontroll" wasn't exactly an easy popcorn movie....

The Independent Film Channel has been screening the full length version of Kontroll (111 minutes by my reckoning), widescreen, with nice clear subtitles. I watched the first 3 minutes and was hooked, open-mouthed, for the duration of the movie. The stunning "railing" sequence, a spine-tingling dolly shot that simply refuses to cut away, is like one of those dreadful nightmares wherein one is being chased by the dark, hooded figure who gets ever closer ... in fact the entire movie is a dream-state, a blossoming of those flowers of evil any city dweller has sensed in a subway late at night, when there are few people around ... it took me back to my days (or nights) working late in the West End of London, and catching the last, late underground train home ... Strange that nobody has commented on the way the movie navigates the low-key sexual tensions between the (almost entirely male) characters, with the leader of the rival "railing" gang making a gay-baiting comment about his antagonist ... and thus it is even more interesting that the young woman - Bela's daughter - is reductively described by many reviewers as Bulscu's 'girlfriend' when she doesn't really fulfil that prosaic a dramatic function, any more than the 'pusher/shadow' is a literal serial killer in the manner, say, of Lustig's 'Maniac'. She occupies a similar space to the magnificent owl, a being that sees what is going on in the darkness (and that also is sacred to Athena, goddess of -among other things- wisdom). And while the subtitles refer to her as wearing a "bear" suit, viewers on IMDb and amazon seem to think she's in a "bunny" suit, while I would swear she's in a kangaroo cozzie. In fact the presence of real or masquerade animals in the movie is mythically interesting - I counted 3 dogs, for instance, and was reminded of the 3-headed dog Cerberus, the Guardian of the Underworld in classical mythology (also a reference Fincher made in 'Se7en') I could write reams about this astounding movie. Dream-like, nail-biting, humane and terrifying in equal measure, it's a work of which all involved in its making must be amazingly proud. And can anyone identify the brilliant young man who plays the dazzlingly choreographed fare-dodger, spraying Tibor's face with ... what ? Crazy Foam ? Shaving cream ? ... and parcouring magnificently down the escalator before meeting his (shocking) fate ?