‘Countries’ Archives
Gypsies
Cigányok Hungary, 1962, black and white, 17 mins If the IMDB is to be believed, this short documentary made for the renowned Béla Balázs Studio is the directorial debut of Sándor Sára, who went on to forge a distinguished career as both director of his own films and cinematographer of other people's, notably Ten Thousand Suns (Tízezer nap, [...]
You…
Te Hungary, 1962, black and white, 10 minsOne of the first films by one of Hungary's greatest contemporary directors, You... is a delightful jeu d'ésprit with a distinctly French nouvelle vague flavour: in particular, it's strongly reminiscent of Jean-Luc Godard's Une Femme Mariée (1964), though Szabó's film was made a couple of years earlier. [...]
Hungarian New Wave: Melancholy and Silence
During the dozen or so days I spent at the Era New Horizons festival in Wrocław last month, I divided much of my time between compulsory jury duty (i.e. watching all thirteen films in the New Polish Films competition) and sampling as much as my schedule would allow of their mouthwatering 1960s/70s Hungarian retrospective, 'Melancholy and [...]
Sweet Rush
Tatarak Poland, 2009, colour, 85 mins Director: Andrzej Wajda Screenplay: Andrzej Wajda (and, uncredited, Krystyna Janda), based on the story by Jarosław Iwaskiewicz Photography: Paweł Edelman Production Design: Magdalena Dipont Costume Design: Magdalena Biedrzycka Music: Paweł Mykietyn Sound: Jacek Hamela Editing: Milenia Fiedler Producer: [...]
Sweet Rush
Tatarak Poland, 2009, colour, 85 mins Unlike the long-gestating, big-budget Katyń (2007), Andrzej Wajda's new film was shot relatively quickly with a small cast and on a comparatively low budget, and premiered less than eighteen months after its predecessor at this year's Berlin Film Festival, where it shared the Alfred Bauer prize. But [...]
Era New Horizons: New Polish Films 4
Snow White and Russian Red (Wojna polsko-ruska, d. Xawery Żuławski, 2009). It was clear well before the screening that this was attracting the competition's greatest buzz, and it was obvious why from the first few minutes. Xawery Żuławski is clearly the only man on the planet who thinks his father Andrzej's films aren't insane enough, and is [...]
Era New Horizons: New Polish Films 3
My Flesh, My Blood (Moja krew, d. Marcin Wrona, 2009).Director Marcin Wrona announced that the version of his debut film screened at Wrocław wasn't necessarily the final one, and that he'd welcome suggestions for improvement. Sadly, "reshoot it from scratch with a better script" probably wasn't a realistic option, which is a shame as that's by [...]
Era New Horizons: New Polish Films 2
Happy Aphonia (Afonia i pszczoły, d. Jan Jakub Kolski, 2009).With films like Pornography (Pornografia, 2003) and Jasminum (2006), Jan Jakub Kolski established himself as one of modern Polish cinema's more striking individualists, attracting comparisons with Federico Fellini and Emir Kusturica. These are still valid for Happy Aphonia (also known [...]
Era New Horizons: New Polish Films 1
I spent much of the end of July attending the 9th Era New Horizons film festival in Wrocław, Poland, where I was simultaneously covering it for Sight & Sound and sitting on the five-strong jury for the New Polish Films competition. There were thirteen entries (all feature-length Polish fiction films released after 31 July 2008) and two [...]
Daisies
Sedmikrásky Czechoslovakia, 1966, colour/black & white (assorted tints), 73 minsI was planning to post a full-scale review of Second Run's new DVD of Věra Chytilová's Daisies/Sedmikrásky by today, but workload and a commission to write an extended piece on it for Sight & Sound conspired against me.But what I'll certainly say is that [...]