BLOG - EAT MY WORDS
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2006.11.21
LONGER WEBSITES RULE!

The basic concept of my home page is that it is not a home site, but a home page: a single page. i am making the effort again and again to constitute myself as a focused subject and avoid the fragmentation of my personality and persona. That's why i struggle to be identified as maxigas everywhere. This very blog area is a puny effort to hold back the forces of desctruction that would tear me apart. But i wanted to write about a very simple technical thing here: website space. Not megabytes but pixels. So far i was struggling to keep a compact form and encapsulate everything, but at the same time refrain from constraining myself to a small claustrophobic space in the potentially infinite cyberspace. The solution: i will simply make the page longer, and put a table-o-contents area to every screen. i could even float it. --------------------------
LAPTOP LOVE
When i go to bed at night, i use it as a torchlight. In the morning, the alarm clock widget wakes me up. i never turn it off -- it merely sleeps as i do. When my nerves brake down, the system crashes simultaneously. i hate when other people touch it, especially those i don't know or like. i'd rather shake hands or hug with someone then give them my machine. External memory it is. Freud writes about the inital stage of the child when it's still feeding from the mother's breast. At this point -- so he sais --, there is no awareness of subject and object, but the child cannot make a difference between the world and itself. Practically speaking, the breast is still part of the child. Later -- as Lacan discovered --, during the mirror-experiences we learn about the subject/object distinction. Now, when you get your first laptop all those precious previous experiences are worth nothing. My laptop is my organ just as my hands are. Or probably more, if i think about that the main function of my hands is merely to serve as part of the input interface to my laptop. Most of the time my hands are just part of the technology that connects me with my laptop, much like my neck is only there to interface my head and torso.
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2006.11.13 16:56 (we should have started translation class in 30 mins)
The activist movie distribution infrastructure lack its critiques, film critics and websites which publish criticism of films and spotlights notable works. There are many notable works in the area but the lack of focus makes them invisible in the sea of (simple but necessary and mostly effective) protest coverage. What are the best and latest titles and why? What are the upcoming trends and which tradition they continue? What is the dynamics between activist and passivist filmmaking?
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2006.11.07 16:03 (written on the metro line M1, finished during a lecture in split screen with the notes)
My favourite part is the beginning of a film, and the worst is the end. That's the part which is the most real about any story. That's particularly the only part when i can really escape into a documentary about another existence. Storytelling in the middle of the film is often tiresome. The end of any story is mostly always absurd or unsatisfactory. Seldom is it possible to find a slice of life that truly has a beginning a middle and an end. In this respect, death is always the easiest way to go. Naturally, an unnatural and unexpected death is not suitable for a fair ending: the most organic case is the dying of an old person. That's what at least half of Makk Károly's Szerelem is about. But what makes the death of an old lady interesting? Well, a lot of intercut images which reflect or counter her thoughts/feelings/words. Artificial again, isn't it?
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2006.11.29 11:47
On my way to our secret hideout i was travellin' on the tram and played Miles Davies to all the papas and mamas around and even for that black antifascist guy who could value black music i hope (Is that a stereotype?). i thought of producing a docking station which would be a backpack. i could just put down my bag on the subway platform and throw a party. You could go around with it and connect to it wirelessly from your laptop. It could have several back-up HDDs, a ghetto blaster sound system, and of course killer antennas and a router for wifi hacking. All packed in a backpack -- wouldn't it be nice? i wonder how many urban guerillas would build such gear or pay for it on the netmarket (note: you needn't have a black market network any more to spread stuff -- even dope is sold and bought on ebay). --------------------------
2006.10.12 05:30 Check my hypermedia blog under /blog where i started posting videos about my anarchist business trip to London in APC colours. --------------------------
2006.05.28 13:22
Note for a future film: surrealism is not the goal. However, i always enjoy the middle part of films, where i can see the everyday functioning of an alien world. i don't like the beginning so much, where this world is clumsily built up for my eyes, and i hate the end, when this world self-destructs into nothingness. Thuswise, a film is necessary where only the middle part is present, without the boring introduction of characters, situations, scenes and relationships. Let them introduce themselves. Let there be no end, because the end is always sad. Let the film begin again at the end, but not because of a structural trick, but only because i like the middle of films the best, and this is the most enjoyable solution for me. i would like to make a film that i enjoy watching.
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2006.05.28 13:18
Visual idea for film: magnesium powder in a line up a staircase, which burns and serves as a moving light source that the camera can track up an ancient wide stone staircase. Technical problem: can the burning powder go up? Probably not.
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2006.05.24
Oh, it seems no blogging uptil this point.. scarce internet access and too busy. However, film reviews and notes downloads are growing thanks to the exam period.
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2005.12.24
Ha! i restarted blogging, and i promise to be destructive and post 2 times a week. it’s gone B a hypermedia blog. video, audio, pix, text -- whatever you want. more news there. this space will only for updates logging and to announce if i get married. :)

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2005.12.03
Maxigas beszamol a WSIS folyamatrol, a ketfordulos ENSz konferenciarol az Informacios Tarsadalomrol. 2003-ban Genfben, 2005-ben pedig Tuniszban tartottak a ketfordulos konferenciat a kormanyok, a cegek es a civil szfera bevonasaval. A tet az informaciot es kommunikacios technologiak (ICT) tarsadalmi hatasa: a digitalis szakadek elmelyulese, athidalasanak lehetosegei. Az Internet es az informacio szabadsaga. Maxigas a helyszinrol kovette es tudositotta a folyamatot.

Az eloadas utan paranoia workshop - felhasznalo-szintu technikai megoldasok az informacios szabadsagra.

Koordinatak: december 9.-en penteken este nyolctol feltizig, az AK57-ben (Dohany utca 57, 128-as kapucsengo).

Tovabbi info:

osszes wsis cikk az indymedian

legutobbi wsis ertekeles

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2005.07.18 12:50
i've just got this very cool idea i wanted to add to my blog. i found a godfuckin' gOd editor for my new Mac to write this, but by the time i installed it i lost the thought. powwow. :( --------------------------
2005.05.28 11:48:34
UPDATE - Notes (2005 spring)

2005.05.28 11:44:57
RELAX...

maxigas can't relax. if he or she tries to relax, he tries not to think of the things he has to do: all the different projects, scenarios, plans, conferences and actions he has in his mind. then, his mind is clear. this is DANGEROUS. a clear mind is very CREATIVE. it invents.

it invents new projects, scenarios, plans, conferences and actions...

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2005.03.06 11:24:33
MAXIGAS...

maxigas have chosen Peter Greenaway his master because his favourite colour is green and his given name is Peter.

maxigas washes twice daily: once for himself (in the morning, because he sweats heavy at night), and once for his wife (in the evening, because he shouldn't go to bed dirty).

maxigas is funded by Kölcsey Ferenc Protestant College to find out about Tulse Luper.

maxigas help the poor and the dispriviliged, but only the beautiful and the old.

2005.01.17 08:18:55
FILMTERV

Egy kiberpunk rövidfilm, expresszionista stílusban. Sok film használt sziluetteket kiemelt pontokon, vagy átvezetésként. Viszont ez a film kizárólag sziluettekbõl állna, fekete-fehéren, szürkeárnyalatok nélkül. Összefoglalná a sziluett-technika különbözõ használatait a filmtörténetben, és feltárna néhány õj lehetõséget is. Amik már megvoltak: a hõs-kiáll-a-hegytetõre, vagy farkas-a-sziklán; a menet a hegyen, vagy az ellenséges sereg a magas horizonton; a tárgyalás nem-tudjuk-kivel, vagy a gondolkodó nagyúr. Amit nem láttam gyakran: a városi tömeg az utcán, a sokféle ablakban sokféle tevékenység, ...

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a nemzetkozi programokon altalaban azt gondoljuk, baratok kozott vagyunk, es elengedhetjuk magunkat. pedig lehet, hogy pont az ellenkezoje sul ki. Ankaraban az tortent, hogy mire megbizonyosodtunk rola, legyozve joszandekunkat es pozitiv hangvetelunket, hogy iszonyatos gaz van, addigra vege lett a cuccnak.

ezert ugy erzem, hogy kell lennie az ellenallas felelossegenek. ha rossz egy szemcsi, az a resztvevokon is mulik! azert mennek ki, hogy az ellenallas lehetosegeirol beszeljenek, es Szabinaval ellentetben meg azt sem gondolom, hogy a gyakorlati tervek megfogalmazasa jobb lenne az elmeleti diskurzusnal, csak tortenjen vm. ne azzal menjenek el az emberek, hogy "and all that kind of (green) stuff". szoval a resztvevoknek van egy olyan felelosseguk, hogy akar a szeminariumszervezoket megdontve, onmagukat megszervezve, de elerjek, hogy ertelmes dolgokrol essek szo. ha pedig az ember egyedul marad, akkor egyedul csinalja ezt. persze, azt is el tudom kepzelni, hogy unja a dolgot, de akkor 1 tiszta egyenes akcio erejeig megis jeleznie kell kivonulasa okat, nem sunnyognia, mert az nem zoldhoz melto.

reszemrol Ankaraban az tortent, hogy mar az elejen mindenkinek gyanakodtam, aztan eleg kemeny ellenallast, egy kis belso puccsot is csinaltunk, de aztan onnon batorsagunk es toleranciank es remenyunk foteljaban elomolva vegulis hagytuk veszendobe menni azt a maradek ket napot, amit nagyon sajnalok.

 

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Members of the HRI have been working hard to bring you this collection of audio-recorded lectures! Mail me for password. [m]

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DOWNLOAD NOTES
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i promised i'll email it, eh?

mutation with brother's notes [»]

Dots: NOT about the quality!

• - 1 or 2 lessons.
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--------- 2006spring ---------

HANDEL OLVASMÁNYOK
Két tanulmány szkennelve. [zip]

NÉMETH MARCELL •••
Művészetfilozófia II. [html]

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VARGA-PÁPAI •••
Egyetemes magyar filmtörténet III. [html]

GELENCSÉR GÁBOR •••
Magyar filmtörténet IV. [html]

----------- 2005spring -----------

BOKODY PÉTER •••
Trecento [txt]

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Blanchot [txt]

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Hermeneutika és dekonstrukció [txt] Check out the minisite too!

RADNÓTI SÁNDOR
Lukács regényelmélete [txt]

LUKÁCS GYÖRGY /könyv/
A regény elmélete [txt]

FODOR GÉZA
Csehov: Platonov [txt]

TAKÁCS FERENC
Fiatalkori önarckép film [txt]

OTDK
Konferencia [txt]

PÁLFALUSI ZSOLT
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RÉNYI ANDRÁS
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Gothic in the 18./19.c. [txt]

 

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FILM BLOG
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60s Hungarian film
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KESERŰ IGAZSÁG Várkonyi Zoltán
1956 - Last semester we viewed some sabotage and work-competition films from the 40s. Now, this is an aftermath, preserving most of the dramaturgical structure, but inverting some patterns. The director of the firm, who is appointed by the Party, is a negative figure who creates a saboteur from his best friend and right hand, in order to cover his responsibility. He does not heed to the warning of his proletarian workers, because he wants to fulfill the Plan set out by the Party. Therefore both the people of the Party and the overall system of the Plan-driven industry is criticised.

60s Hungarian film
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MEGSZÁLLOTTAK Makk Károly
Not the schematism of 50s "production movies", but definitely in the genre. The protagonist is not the simple worker but the engineer, who was the sly bad guy before. Now it's not about quantity over quality, but innovation. However, the enemy -- bureaucracy -- is the same. Introducing a new figure with a great future carrier: the secondary protagonist who is a stratega and a resoneur. Oh, it's about finding water and digging wells in the Big Hungarian Plains. (1961, •••)

KÉT FÉLIDŐ A POKOLBANFábri Zoltán
Spring, 1944. Hungarian war prisoners in a work camp are given priviliges if they organise a football team to entertain the Germans. Sikovits Imre, a famous player leads the team. On the day of the big game their prospect is none other than death because of a failed desertion attempt -- which understandibly effects the moral of the team. However, caught by the logic of the game and the situation they play and win, only to anger the German general who orders the rejoicing Hungarians to be massacred. A tragic comedy with no clear-cut characters and beautiful camera work (especially the opening scene with the camera tied to a piece of wood which is carries aournd the workfield). (1961, ••)

HÚSZ ÓRA Fábry Zoltán
The director did all that is possible to do with this script. The motto of the film is "this story cannot be written", mouthed by a journalist who is investigating a murder in a village. The visual counterpart of this leitmotif are the pages of notes spread across the field where he sits brooding. In the cut, the struggles of the simple people through history comes to life through a flash-back mix of nonlinear memories. Land distribution after the war, collectivisation in socialism. These people live a bitter life in the village, always under the shadow of conflicts past. Despite its realism, the film is an apologetic of the Kádár era because the protagonist is the progressive party member who always executes the orders from above and with great passion and struggle explain the people why they need them. (1964, ••••)

ÁLMODOZÁSOK KORASzabó István
First of the directors first feature film trilogy, which mirrors the themes and techniques of the first of his short film trilogy prepared in his student years. A cross-breeding of the "i-came-like-this" development story and the production movie, featuring motifs of work and growing up. Young engineers are separated by the administration and by their love affairs, their great ambitions running aground. (1964, ••)

CSILLAGOSOK, KATONÁK
Jancsó Miklós
A well-choreographed wartime physical education class, this film takes place in Russia during the 1919 revolution, tracing Hungarian internationalist communist soldiers randomly floating on the sea of marshes. The award-winning minimalistic Jancsó style is routinely applied. (1967, •••••)

70s Hungarian film
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SZERELEM Makk Károly
The film centres around a political prisoner who is absent for 90% of the film. His mother is very old and dying. She is served and sustained by a maid (physically) and his wife (financially and emotionally). For her, he is working on a great Hollywood film in the USA. His wife is struggling with a miserable existence with which the state is punishing her. Her flat is taken away and she is sacked. For her, he is a lost lover in a nonsense war. At 75% of runnin time there is a culminating scene when the mother brakes down and demands him to be called home because she is dying -- the wife who has been forging his American letters is dying as well in a way, and she brakes down crying while she agrees to write him to come home. "When misery is the worst, the help is the nearest" says Hölderlin, but doubts remain. He is suddenly let out of the prison to find a dead mother and a loving wife. (1970, •••••)

SZINDBÁDHuszárik Zoltán
The lyric subjective voice in film making. Stands apart from the crowd. The memoirs of a lovelace and dinner artist. Dreamy with super-close cut-ins. Co-created with experimental filmmaker Tóth János from Krúdy Gyula's narratives. (1971, ••••)

AZONOSÍTÁS Lugossy László
One of the most annoying films ever seen, which traces soldiers returning to communist Hungary after WW2. Cserhalmi György plays one who is registered under a false name. In most scenes he chases a bureaucract denying his name and demanding to be recognised, which eventually happens and the film closes with him staring blankly into the objective. Stilisation leans towards the grotesque and there are some quite absurd situations, but these never leave the realm of real. (1975, •)

KILENC HÓNAP Mészáros Márta
The story of an independent-minded girl in socialist reality, ridden with traditional family attitudes and house-problems (an overarching problem motive of the decade). Therefore the film leans itself to a didactic feminist reading. However, the true merits lie in its documentarist depiction of contemporary conditions with psychologically real characters. (1976, •••)

A MÉNESGAZDA Kovács András
A dense picture of socialist cruelty and mismanagement: ideological cleanups leave the country without professionals -- the forces of production are promptly destroyed by mismanagement while terror fills the air. The local knights are torn between strategies of passive resistance (a traditional art in Hungary) and their love of horses. The cadre appointed as their boss lacks expertise and cannot control the "second line" forces of the regime. In the closing scene the remaining knights flee while the authorities raid the farm to stamp out the reactionary elements and eventually destroy the farm as an economic/ideological unit, and the honest cadre powerless unable to control the situation. (1978, ••)

VERI AZ ÖRDÖG A FELESÉGÉT András Ferenc
The film is a satirical expression of the total alienation between the political bureacracy of the state and the common people. The leaders only want to be left alone, while the people only want petty favours to aid them in the accumulation of wealth. The separation completed, there is no space left for political dialog of any kind any more. The conflict is manifests in the "small feast" (contrasting with Bertolucci's The Big Feast), where the family indulges in food but the politician is unable to engage with them even in such a basic level. (1977, ••)

TÍZ ÉV MÚLVA Lányi András
A director is working on a movie on the independent film movement of the 60s. The film has a mirror-structure where the 60s unveils the 70s and vica versa. Illusions are utterly destroyed in the dialogues between the director and the independent filmmaker couple, which are intercut with grassroots productions of from the past decade. The free-wheeling montage of the film is refreshing and enjoyable while the content reveals the slow creep of life tragedies. (1978, •••••)

CSÉPLŐ GYURI Schiffer Pál
Documentarism is gaining ground in the seventies and this film is one of the flagships of documentarist fiction features about a young gipsy from a small village in the middle of nowhere who can read and that is an opportunity to play the most basic immigrant game: to move from the country to the city in high hopes of a more prosperous life, finding only inferior conditions and harder work for the lucky. (1978, ••••)

AJÁNDÉK EZ A NAP Gothár Péter
Yet another film on the house problem -- the single most popular motive of Hungarian film in the 70s. A middle-aged woman's quest for a house "with a view" begins with the death of an old lady who shared flat with her, continues through a corrupt businessman and a fake marriage, and ends in a pub-a-round with her lover's wife. A social melodrama with frequent grotesque intermezzo scenes. (1979, ••)

80s Hungarian film and on
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A KUTYA ÉJI DALA Bódy Gábor
The Nocturnal Song of the Dog is a cult piece of the Hungarian 'New Sensitivity' - the postmodern breeze in local film history. Directed by Bódy Gábor, starring some amateur actors from the village, as well as a lineup of underground stars: the director himself (from the experimental studio Balázs Béla Stúdió aka BBS) plays a fake priest, which is especially cool regarding his real life function as a government spy reporting on contemporary directors; Grandpierre Attila plays himself, because he couldn't be more surreal: the lead singer of a mystical punk band who works as an astronomer in an observatory; and last but not least Méhes Marietta, another cult icon singer starring in URH (?). Amateur memorabilia shots in S8 are thrown into the film, and finally two people commit suicide from the town right after the fake priest has left the scene. Wow. (1983, •••••)

ÁLOMBRIGÁD Jeles András
A communist trash-movie. Pretty errantic editing and coarse images. Begins with a long sequence of the narrator trying to begin telling the story, and related apologies. A brigade would play Gelman's Premium, but the film focuses on the process rather than the result. Mainly amateur characters from factories talking about how fucked up there bosses are. Of course they are pretty fucked up as well. Nice. (1983, •••••)

JÉGKRÉMBALETT Wahorn András
Underground alternative bands URH and Kontroll Csoport (Control Group) are the stars of this film by a renowned Hungarian neoavantgarde painter (Szentendre school). It is a trash mix of concert flics and miscellaneous going about. The relevant label is 'New Sensitivity' again, and BBS is the film studio. (1984, •)

SZÖRNYEK ÉVADJA Jancsó Miklós
A 25 year graduation anniversary of medics turns out to be too surreal. One gets mad amongst televisions which show the scenes of the film from another direction and with small time-shifts, becoming a serial killer of sorts. At the turning point in his corpus from modern to postmodern, Jancsó, who lost faith in a closed allegorical meaning, parodises his own style by making choregraphies with cars. The theme of the film also turns from the objective historical to the subjective pathological. (1987, ••••)

HANUSSEN Szabó István
WWI. A soldier gets some lead in his brain and acquires supernatural powers. He can transpose his will on other people, read their mind and tell the future. He is a magician. He was Claus Schneider, but after the war he becomes Erik Jan Hanussen. He finds his fortune in Berlin, where he professes Hitler's rise to power as a way to build his own carrier. Riefenstein photographes him. (1988, •)

METEO Monory Mész András
One year after Blade Runner (1988) this is the Hungarian cyberpunk classic (termed part of the 'new impressiveness' movement by film historians). Starring famous now-nationalist actor Eperjes Károly, the visual is all there, what is missing is the existential borderline problematic that is a key element of cyberpunk works, and what was exemplified by the human vs. machine dichotomy in BR which is deconstructed by the concept of the cyborg. Similarly to BR the location is a factory sector which is about to be blown up. (1989, •••••)

MAGYAR REKVIEM Makk Károly
With Cserhalmi György and Eperjes Károly, written from a short story by the director himself. Two years after the revolution of 1956 the retaliation is still going on. Many innocent people have been executed, and many more waits for the gallows. "I am Johnny from Fireman Street" announces Eperjes Károly, the ex-police officer when he enters the cell in the opening sequences. He sits with "jews, gipsies, ex-barons and other mob." Some of them can exploit the power of fiction in various ways to make virtual sojourns outside the tight prison walls. The women's prison is in the same complex. A prison-drama (mostly) in colour, with baroque fantasy-sequences and documentary insets. Music is Bach's Matthew Passion & Mozart: Requiem. (1991, ••)

ÉDES EMMA, DRÁGA BÖBE
Szabó István
Another Black Sequel film about two young teacher girls who come to Budapest to escape the void of country life. One tries to find happiness through true love and the other through whoredom. As the story unfolds we learn that true love actually means being the lover of the married headmaster of the school. As the headmaster does not return her feelings, it turns out that there is no difference between the two girls. Total moral annihilation. The former girl commits suicide and the latter becomes a newsgirl. (1992, ••••)

SOSE HALUNK MEG Koltai Róbert
Starred and directed by Koltai Róbert, this film is the initiation story of a teenage boy who goes to the countryside ("Újhely") for a vacation - or to grow up: have sex and work. Full of the annoying chatter of Koltai and the tomfool face of this boy this is a most annoying and sexist film to watch. Eventually the boy screws the girl she likes, Koltai (his uncle) gets alcohol poisoning or heart attack or something and dies at the horse racetrack while scoring a great deal of money. (1993, •)

BOLSE VITA Fekete Ibolya
Sociological film about Russian immigrants who are going to Yugoslavia, but has to gather 200 dollars to cross the border, therefore they get stuck in Budapest. Two punks play on the street for money. Eventually, one of them marries an English girl and leaves for London, while the other stays. A third guy was an engineer, now working at the market selling whatever he can, and eventually gets busted by the Russian maffia which comes after the refugee wave. (1996, •••)

ÁRNYÉK A HAVON Janisch Attila
The life-crisis of a divorced man in black and white (Black Sequel film). A piece of crime-thriller stuffed with symbols, termed a "consciousness movie" by Gelencsér Gábor, and very rightly so. The main character is so unbelievably stupid that is really annoying to watch this film. He gets a lot of money for free and at the end he cuts his own leg and dies abandoned. Op: Sas Tamás (1991, ••)

GYEREKGYILKOSSÁGOK Szabó Ildikó
A nerd (reminiscent of Smut in DROWNING BY NUMBERS) lives with her grandmother (a demented ex-primadonna) at a concrete block near the Danube. A lonely pregnant gipsy whore moves nearby into a wagon. They become friends, the child borns still, a snoop tells the police, the whore dies in the hospital, the nerd kills the snoop, and ends up in an orphanage after developing a friendship with the investigating police officer. All shot in black and white ("in grey", they say), part of the Black Sequel. Tragicomic Eastern realism. (1993, •••••)

ILYEN AZ ÉLET Közgáz Vizuális Brigád
The definitive anthology of indepent film making, a collection of shorts by one of the most prolific visual collectives. There was a historical moment in Hungarian film history after the change of system when underground films broke into mainstream cinemas. Members of the collective connect the shorts with funny commentaries about independent film making. (1995, ••••)

ILYEN AZ ÉLET Közgáz Vizuális Brigád
The definitive anthology of indepent film making, a collection of shorts by one of the most prolific visual collectives. There was a historical moment in Hungarian film history after the change of system when underground films broke into mainstream cinemas. Members of the collective connect the shorts with funny commentaries about independent film making. (1995, ••••)

HAGGYÁLLÓGVA VÁSZKA Gothár Péter
Shot in Moscow, these pictures have a peculiar retro-trash quality which goes well with the story, which is a surrealist folk tale about the covenant and subsequent adventures of the little city thief and the big country thief. Framed with an ever so charming superclose shot of a gipsy-style folk orchestra, this is a masterpiece of subjective storytelling and filmmaking focusing on the material quality of fiction which goes against reality as we know it. (1996, ••••)

Asian films

TETSUO /4/

TETSUO II.
Actually better than the first one. More eclectic and even more bereft of narrative. The images are stunning and powerful, however: the ultimate man/machine combo - the human eye blinks through a thousand machine parts. Men infected with the corrosive can transform their anger into guns that grow out of their very bodies. The small boy shoots his father because he shot his mother at the height of a sexual intercourse. His younger brother's comment: "at that point my brother lost his memory. But not because he shot his father. Because he tasted the beauty of violence." Oh yeah, burn down the city!

KÁRHOZAT /2/ (Black Sequel film.)

SZÜRKÜLET Fehér György
The detective gets out of the old car and walks in the woods. The camera stays in the car and watches through the frame of the open door. That's all happening very slowly. The film - which we have seen on a depraved VHS copy - is little more than the maniac re-enacting of that very scene at dusk, at night, in rain and in fog. The story is supposed to be about the murder of a little girl by a stalker ("cukrosbácsi" in Hungarian: "sweet-man"), and the subsequent contest between two detectives with different approaches. Gelencsér Gábor states that there are epistemological arguments in the film. Black Sequel film.

BURST CITY Togo Ishi
Called the "punk filmmaker", Ishi's style is descibed as the visual equivalent of punk music. Imagine. His special power - apart from the energetic cyberpunk mise-en-scéne - is the tossled camera. Many scenes are recorded with hand camera in a riot situation. However, he manages to cut these scenes so that in fact one can make out the action in the flashes. Other times, the tossled camera produced an energetic abstract image. Sheer energy shines from these flics!

WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN Pedro Almodóvar
Establishing his "women's director" image, Almodóvar pictures two women in crisis in a light tragicomedy over love, jelousy and a tint of crime trouble. At the end the protagist saves her ex-lover's life at the airport when his wife wants to shoot him, but the reconciliation scene ends in her plain rejection of him, and she walks out of the airport as a free woman.

SWEET MOVIE Dusan Makavejev

RAGYOGJ, RAGYOGJ, CSILLAGOM Mitta
Strange fairy-tale atmosphere covers this cruel drama about common people and artists in a small village ridden by the wars of the 1920s in Russia between "the white, the red and the green". Are the green Mahnovcsina anarchist guerillas? They are termed burglars in the film. In harsh colour and with some carnival feel. (•••)

BALLADA A KATONÁRÓL Csuhra
Obviously a great deal of dedication, emotional involvement, professional talent and experience went into the production of this film. An anthem for the unknown soldier, it chronicles the journey of a young soldier visiting her mother at a small village to fix the broken roof. His encounters on the way present the physical and emotional conditions behind the war front. Two main figures are the laim soldier who don't want to return home to her girl; and the innocent city girl who is afraid of indicencies. The journey takes longer than expected, and eventually he has no time but to give her mother a hug and turn back. Based on a true story and shot in the noblest black and white. (*****)

WINTER LIGHTIngmar Bergman
"The Silence of God" is when the metaphyisical threshhold is covered in myst, Jesus screaming on the cross: "Why haveth thee abandon me?" A pastor brakes down in a small Swedish village, facing the utter meaninglessness of life and the love of an atheist teacher he would not accept. Grace is in the air (in the form of Ingrid Thulin), but he is already too fucked up to accept it -- melodrama á la Bergman, and his favourite film too. Visually, the film uses head shots and silhouettes extensively. ([Úrvacsora], 1963, •••)

THE STORY OF THE ELECTRIC POLE BOY /i haven't seen anything like this before./

MEGSZÁLLOTTSÁG Brian DePalma
The new Hollywood director tries to emulate Hitchcock, quite successfully but not too interestingly. A detective story mixed with a thriller where the main character gets caught in the web of events. Colours of the VHS copy were characteristically hollow.

THE PHANTOM OF FREEDOM Bunuel
The film is visually very conventional and does not offer any ingeniuty. On the other hand, the trick is especially this: in the conventional film there are peculiar twists, that are more surprising embedded in this visually conventional material.

---36.th Hungarian FilmWeek---

BEFORE DAWN (Holnapután)
Kenyeres Bálint, op: Erdélyi Mihály
A masterpiece. If Kubrick could have seen it he would have been ashamed. Before dawn, a hilly sea of wheat shot in beautiful blue colour. A truck comes into the picture, two men get out, and a fascinating dance begins with people, vehicles, and paths in the wheat. The choreography is extraordinary, the sound is real, and eventually one of the illegal immigrants escape. /5/

A FÉNY ÖSVÉNYEI Mispál Attila

FEKETE KEFE Vranik Roland
Shot in black and white, a semi-surreal tale about chimney-sweepers and goat-dung-drug. The dramaturgical logic is this (© pygmalion): every diversion from the original plan, even if it sounds silly, is straightforwardly accepted. At the end, the whole chain of diversions come back in full circle. Althought the original aim is only partly fulfilled, the catastrophe is countered. This letter is a cyberpunk element.

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THE AVIATOR Martin Scorsese
Howard Hughes seems to have been a truly tough guy, read the exciting Wikipedia entry. The film is articulated forcefully, although there is the usual lag in the middle when the initial story is over and there begins a new one. What is really masterful however is the smooth blend between ordinary (celebrity) life events and psychedelic intermezzos. I was repeatedly reminded of Citizen Kane, mostly because both films are based on filmmaker/aviator/millionainaire Howard Hughes.

MAMMA ROMA Pierre Paolo Pasolini
The usual neorealist experience: black-and-white shots of semi-real people in their own milieu, speaking continually the lovely Italian language. The new kid on the block gets a fuck from whores and gives a fuck about the rest. (1962)

ALIENS VS. PREDATOR
NOVEMBER
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
GÁSPÁR MENYHÉRT SZÜLETÉSE