| For Tribune : PALFI Gyorgy's 'Taxidermia' [5/10] |
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| Sunday, 08 July 2007 | |
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HUNGARY FOR MORE? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Taxidermia Hungary 2006 Starring : Marc Bischoff, TROCSANYI Gergely Director : PALFI Gyorgy UK release date 13th July 2007 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ BACK in 2002, writer-director Palfi's debut Hukkle was one of the most distinctive, original and promising first features from a European director in several years. Unfortunately the praise seems to have gone to the young auteur's head: his follow-up Taxidermia - a kind of 'arthouse gross-out' which has caused a stir on the film-festival circuit since premiering at Cannes last May - shows many classic signs of sophomore overreach. Palfi's talent is beyond question: there are many virtuouso sequences here which display a striking mastery of the medium; but he's so aggressively determined to elicit the most of extreme reactions from his viewers that bemused indifference seems the most sensible response. Reportedly based on short stories by Nagy Lajos (Hungarian surnames come first), Palfi's script is a tripartite chronicle of recent Hungarian history: wartime prologue; Communism-era mid-section; present-day denouement. The connecting element is Balatony Kalman (Trocsanyi), a champion in the (mercifully-fictional) pursuit of "sport eating." We see the unusual, porcine circumstances of his birth; observe him in his prime at a multi-national 'Spartakiad' event (the 'rounds' interspersed with large-volume vomiting sessions); see the bulky chap romance the similarly generously-proportioned Gizi (Stanczel Adel). The final section focuses on the behemoths' progeny: the incongruously-spindly Lajos (German actor Bischoff), whose animal-stuffing profession provides Taxidermia with its title. By the time Lajos has reached adulthood, his father has ballooned to immobile super-obesity - long since abandoned by his wife and unable to move or fend for himself, he wolfs down endless chocolate-bars, wrappers and all. This very conspicuous consumption is merely one among countless elements of a film very specifically designed to disgust, appall and repel. Perversely, beauty and stylishness also abounds, via swooping camerawork, a carefully-modulated colour palette, and some terrific little grace-notes (watch for those leaping fish!) all placed at the service of a baroque, satirical surrealism. But - unlike the omnivorous Kalman - Palfi has bitten off rather more than he can chew: this is eventually too much of a self-indulgent parade of gratuitous grotesqueries to provide us with any real food for thought. Stuff and nonsense, if you like... Neil Young for the current issue of Tribune magazine  original review (from Tallinn Film Festival, December 2006)
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