Tag: Hungarian

Jupiter’s Moon (Jupiter Holdja)

Posted on by victorfraga

The first five minutes of this film are so frenetic and electrifying that I could swear it was going to win the Palme d’Or. Syrian refugees are trying to cross from Serbia into Hungary at night on a makeshift boat controlled by greedy smugglers, where they are met with bullets. Their precarious craft capsizes, many are killed and others run into the dense Puszta forest. This is where Aryaan (Zsombor Jéger) is met by a police cop, who shoots him three times. Unexplainably, the bullets fail to kill him. But that’s not the only miracle: the young Syrian suddenly learns that he can fly.

This a premise for a very promising movie, lyrically translating the political connotations of the refugee crisis into supernatural powers. Plus, the film is a metaphor of Europe: it opens up with titles explaining that there is a sea of salt water on one of Jupiter’s moons that could harbour life, and this sea is aptly named “Europa”. Sadly these promises do not materialise. The film slowly morphs into a action thriller dotted with a few poetical devices. By the time we reach the end, the pan-European political message is hardly recognisable, diluted instead in the beautiful cinematography and a fast-paced script.

A greedy doctor called Stern (Merad Ninidze) takes the “angel” Aryaan (maybe it’s no coincidence that his name sounds a lot like “Ariel”) to the Hungarian capital in order to monetise his superpowers. Until the police realise what’s happening and begin to pursue both men, who predictably begin to develop a bond. The bad guy Stern ultimately finds redemption in his life, and tries to make amends with those whom he wronged in the past. He was touched by an angel, it soon becomes clear.

This is not a bad movie per se. The camerawork is indeed impressive, with the image rotating and swiveling across the skies of Budapest. Aryaan also has telekinetic powers. There’s a sequence in the middle of the movie where he makes all the furniture inside a room rotate, thereby taking revenge on a minor antagonist. It looks like some sort of Carrie (Brian de Palma, 1976) meets Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975), which plenty of reflections, shadows, dirty windows and water dripping from the ceiling. It’s worth watching Jupiter’s Moon even for this sequence alone.

The problem is that the film is a bit to long at 120 minutes, and the special effects become repetitive after a while. After 60 minutes or so, the dizzying heights and ingenious camerawork will no longer make your head spin. Plus it plods too heavily towards some sort of grand finale. You will often get the impression the director is working very hard towards some sort of magnificent ET or King Kong-like ending. Yet there’s nothing novel, surprising and audacious about the closing of the movie.

Jupiter’s Moon showed as part of the official competition of the 70th Cannes Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. Overall, the film did not pleased critics, no miracle happened and so the film did not take the Palme d’Or. It is out in UK cinemas on Friday, January 5th (2018). On Mubi on Tuesday, May 24th (2022). Also available on Amazon Prime.

Kills on Wheels (Tiszta Szívvel)

Posted on by mjbstaging

A hybrid between action and comedy, Kills on Wheels also flirts with the language of comic books – some scenes are introduced in storyboard-style. It plays with multiple genres and cinematic devices in very innovative ways.

The three protagonists are disabled, two of them wheelchair-bound. They live in a clinic adapted to their special needs. And they are not very happy with their lives. They want some adventure. The opening scene is a frenetic sequence of a brawl between the three. The images grab you by the neck. You won’t leave the cinema until the film ends. And you’ll need some time to sober up from the dizziness.

The film is keen to represent diversity on the silver screen, not because it portrays a minority, but mainly because the disabled behave, feel and desire just like the able-bodied. Some very awkward habits can reveal that there is little difference. Barba Papa (Fekete Ádám) wants a girlfriend. He wants neither to pay for a date nor to go out with one of his carers. Both hookers and carers are used to dealing with the disabled and there would be no “discovery”. Love has to be about discovery, right? Whenever Barba is nervous, he sprays deodorant on himself. It might attract the right girl.

Rupaszov (Szabolcs Thuróczy) used to work as a hitman for a Serbian gangster. He is still in the mafia even after the accident that left him paraplegic. There is an element of black humour here: how can a paraplegic be threatening? Rupaszov convinces two of his new friends to help him in his killings. From that moment on, the films constantly takes turns, ranging from the creepy to the thought-provoking. Kills on Wheels is a phenomenal register of the struggle against invisibility, rejection and prejudice.

For cinema lovers, the feature is a masterpiece, with a myriad of creative script-writing devices. The images of one of the characters in bed facing the camera is repeated several times and each time it acquires a new meaning. The unfolding events in the film will add new flavours to the sequence. The soundtrack and the score by Csaba Kalotás add to the dynamism and nonconformism of the movie. There is rap for anger, blues for nostalgia, and so on. To top it all up, there is an unpredictable twist in the end, which ties neatly with the film opening – it will make you want to stay attached to your seat for a very long time.

Kills on Wheels showed in the BFI London Film Festival of 2016, when this piece was originally written. It’s out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, September 15th 2017.