Peter Gothar arrived at Cannes last year with A reszleg (The Outpost), an implacably grim descent into the freezing wastelands of communist hell. That title showcased in Un Certain Regard, while this year he returns with Directors' Fortnight entry, Hagyjállóggva Vászka, a strange piece in its own right, and one which, in comparison with A reszleg, is even more striking.
Set in the former Soviet Union, Hagyjállóggva Vászka is a modern Russian fairytale with a Hungarian voiceover which narrates and informs the storyline. The main cast, comprising of Maksim Szergeyev, Yevgenjiy Szigyihin and Valya Kasjanova, are all Russians and they speak in their native tongue, while the director is, of course, Hungarian.
The storyline follows a couple of thieves who break into the National Bank of the Soviet Union and escape with all its treasures. Like Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, the film is imbued with a certain magical realism that defies the conventions of logic. Its amoral heroes, Vaska and Vanya, cock a snook at authority, defying the arm of the law by cleverly evading every trap that is set for them. To break into the bank, they only need a can opener from the griffin's nest, and their descent into the bank's vaults is accomplished by abseiling down a silken thread. The thieves' escape is predictably surreal when the pair simply spread their arms and fly away, eluding the political commissar, Zinoviev, whose character and reactions evoke the grotesque impotence of a pantomine villain.
The story's provenance which prompted Gothar to make Hagyjállóggva Vászka provides another strange twist in the film's evolution. A White Sea gulag (prison) fable, the poet and literary critic Lev Gordon heard the tale by chance, and related the plot to his daughter, Mariana Kozireva, who in time wrote it down and published it in a St Petersburg literary magazine, Smerid. Gothar then picked it up and fashioned the screenplay in collaboration with Laszlo Bratka, making the film as a kind of cautionary, ironic tale.
Shot on video, when Hagyjállóggva Vászka was blown up to 35mm, the film's director of photography, Francisco Gozon, was awarded the top prize at this year's Hungarian Film Festival.
Edna Fainaru
Prod Co: Magic Media, FMS
Prod: Jolan Arvai, Peter Barbalich
Dir: Peter Gothar
Scr: Peter Gothar, Laszlo Bratka
Ph: Francisco Gozon
Prod des: Szergei Kokovkin
Cos: Tatyjana Semljova
Music: György Orban, György Selmeczi
Editor: Bela Eszlary, Eszter Majoros
Cast: Maksim Szergeyev, Yevgenjiy Szigyihin, Valya Kasjanova
Running time: 85mins International
sales: 47ème Parallèle
