|
AFTER
THE DAY BEFORE
5/10
Masnap
: Hungary 2004 : JANISCH Attila : 119 mins
After the
Day Before - Masnap for short - had its UK premiere at the
2004 Edinburgh Film Festival, where the official brochure somewhat unpromisingly
described it as "a thriller based on the concept that no story can
be truly linear." This slowburning rural nightmare proved - unsurprisingly
- much less of a crowd-pleaser than the festival's other big Hungarian
title, Nimrod Antal's raucous, claustrophobic, emphatically urban Kontroll.
Then again, youthful Nimrod was born and partially raised in the US, whereas
the fortysomething Janisch clearly fancies himself as an heir of Hungary's
most acclaimed living director, Tarr
Bela.
In an unnamed
corner of an unnamed country, an unnamed Man (Gaspar Tibot) arrives from
an unnamed distant city. He's in search of a farmhouse he's inherited
following the death of a relative. But what seems like a simple operation
rapidly turns into a harrowing existential crisis. The area is very sparsely
populated, but the Man keeps bumping into hostile countryfolk and when
hospitality is extended, it invariably has troubling consequences.
Piecing together the fragments of this temporally-fragmented puzzle, we
slowly deduce that the story revolves around the death of a young woman...
 Masnap
unfolds at what might charitably be called a "rural pace"
- or rather, given one of the recurrent visual leitmotifs, a "snail's
pace" - with long stretches sans dialogue: instead, the characters
exchange meaningful, enigmatic looks. Despite moments of deadpan comedy
in the early and middle stretches, for the most part Janisch emphasises
a sinister, elliptical ominousness as our "hero" finds himself
spiralling deeper and deeper into... what? Hell? Psychosis? Limbo? A dream?
The eventual
pay-off doesn't really justify the long wait - viewers who've been able
to keep their eyes open will probably have spotted the supposed "big
twist" a mile off. This denouement is notable, however, for some
outstanding camerawork from cinematographer Gabor Medvigy, tracking the
tormented protagonist through a field of tall, swishing crops to the (inevitable)
soundtrack accompaniment of Arvo Part.
Neil Young
15th September,
2004 (seen 20th August : UGC Edinburgh : public show - Edinburgh
Film Festival)
click
HERE for our full coverage of the 2004 Edinburgh Film Festival
by Neil
Young
-
|
