Adapted from the novel Twelve Swans by Peter Eszterhazy, this is a sensual, disquieting drama about memory, love and death.

Its heroine is a naive but passionate gypsy girl, Lili Csokanai, who has good cause to reflect ruefully on an affair gone disastrously wrong.

Director Solyom uses a dazzling array of formal devices (flashbacks, red filters, black and white film) to heighten the sense of the uncanny which pervades the film.

At times, with its multi-layered narrative and intense performances, this resembles nothing so much as a ghost story.

Lili is certainly haunted by her recollections of the man she fell so completely in love with.

As she mulls over events, tiny little incidents in their relationship begin to assume immense, totemic importance. For her, memory is something fluid, magical and highly subjective.

This is one of those films which benefits from its its inchoate, open-ended quality. There are non-sequiturs and baffling leaps back and forth in time, but they only serve to underline the eerie, mesmeric effect.

Geoffrey Macnab

Prod co: Studio Hetfoi Muhely Alapitvany

Dir: Andras Solyom

Prod: Istvan Kardos

Ph: Tibor Mathe

Ed: Judit Kopper, Hilda Harsing

Music: Andro-Drom, Claudio Monteverdi, Nikola Parov, Gabor Presser

Cast: Dorka Gryllus, Attila Kazas, Dorottya Udavros, Lajos

Kovacs, Zsuza Nyertes, Kriszta Nagy

Running time 90 mins

International sales: Hungarofilm

Screenings: 26 June, 12.15, KCP-Kongressovy; 15.00, KCP-Koncertní

[Home ] [Content ] [The Sponsors ] [The Team ] [Comments ] [Help ]