Taxidermie

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

György Pálfi's second feature length movie is Taxidermia, which is about three generation of a family, and all of them has something very peculiar about them: the first one is a horny officer, his son is a very big sport-eater, and his job is very important of him. The third isn't special in any ways, but wants to be. He's very skinny, and there is nothing important about him. His relationship with his father is not very balanced: they diverge from each other in every possible way. But he's secretly planning something, from what he will be famous of... Nothing in Hungarian cinema's history can be compared to this. Not a single Hungarian movie was as violent as this one is sometimes. In some scene it reminded me of Pasolini's Salo. But the disgusting and the violent scenes are all meaningful; probably they are a perverse, misshapen mirror of the society. We can't say, that the leading characters are perverted, because everybody is as much perverted, as the ones we see. Fortunately this unique movie is presented by a big amount of humor - and we simply can't take the characters totally seriously. Taxidermia is a milestone in Hungarian film-making, and was worth every single cent of the Sundance money, from which it was made.

Oh my god! I just got out from seeing Taxidermia at MIFF 2006 and I was literally speechless. As I was one of the first to leave the theatre, I took it upon myself to stand out the front and watch the expressions on the faces of other patrons as they exited. Most were laughing in disbelief at what they had just seen, some were white as ghosts and some looked plain baffled. Whatever way you look at it, Taxidermia will certainly make a strong impact on you.

I saw Gyorgy Palfi's "Hukkle" a few years ago at MIFF and although that was an interesting film, he's really excelled himself with Taxidermia. One thing's for sure, you'll need a strong stomach to watch Taxidermia a) for the gore & b) cause you're gonna laugh your head off! Outstanding cinema! 10/10

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.

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.