The Hungarian Quarterly, 1996 (41. évfolyam, 160. szám)
THEATRE AND FILM - Erzsébet Bori: Brave New Cinema (Kornél Mundruczó, András Fésös, Frigyes Gödrös)
scrapes. Ringó, the trusty friend and brother-in-law, is also hopelessly in love with Bruno, and so is Mari, the delicate, blond wife. The younger people live outside the city in an inherited half-completed house. Mari, an artiste, and Bruno, a hangglider, are preparing a stunt they hope will catapult them to world travel, world audiences, fame and fortune. In the meantime, Bruno and Ringó get into a beaten-up Trabant twice a week and head for the capital and the life of the rent-boy, eking out the money that can be earned in public toilets or in the homes of clients by the occasional theft. Although prostitution itself is not a crime, it is a life that teeters on the edge of criminality, occasionally crossing that edge. Ringó is openly gay, but like someone intoxicated by his own courage, with nothing to lose. Mari lives in her own dream world, unaware—or, rather, refusing to be aware —of where the boys go, how they get the money; while "Daddy" desperately tries to keep himself together and keep up appearances. Bruno is the central figure of the film: it's him that everybody wants, everybody dances attendance on him, and he is the one who commits the tragic offence. He steals, deceives and lies, leads a double life, all the while imagining himself to be some kind of laconic cowboy cantering unblinkingly through all the slime and drek of life. He swears, and he is firmly convinced, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with him, he's not gay like "them”, but a loving husband in a happy marriage, and the meatrack is just a way of making your bread until something better turns up and the big dream comes true. Is it possible to live such a lie and get away with it? It seems to be, for a time at least. Bruno brings ruin on everyone around him, and then rides away. Even Ringo's death fails to force him to face the facts: all he feels is that the ground is slipping away from under his feet, but he doesn't search inside himself, he simply puts the blame on Mari. The film avoids the pitfalls of naturalism, but these do not include either sanctimoniousness or lying. Its elements are alternately humourous and grotesque, resorting, at certain points, to that tried-andtested weapon of filmmakers, the cut. The absurd scenes (the Chippendale Show improvised before the expert eyes of women police officers, or the customer in purple silk clothes ordering a cleaning of some clogged pipes) are most effective. They manage to boldly overstep the boundaries of reality, yet any Budapest taxi driver could tell you even more hair-raising stories. Characteristically, the most naturalistic scene in the film is a family reunion, with papa and mama coming to Sunday lunch, whose main course, only a short time before, was white with red eyes, unsuspectingly munching on a carrot. The rabbit stew might prompt some to head for the exit, but many would not even sit down to see this film after reading any brief synopsis in programme guides. This I Wish And Nothing More is not a film about prostitution, not even about homosexuality, but about lies. Its heroes are not street lads but human beings dogged by misfortune; the more they tiy to run from their destiny, the more hopelessly they are entangled. And that is not a predicament unique to prostitutes or the gay, but part of the human condition. The film allows life to run its course, lets the characters tread their own path, and leaves the viewer in peace—giving as much freedom as is seldom to be enjoyed in the cinema these days. It does not tty to offer a philosophical scheme or interpret things, events or motivations. That's where it gets its credibility from. The poetically young director—in Hungary, a twentysomething can, at best, hope to be a lyrical poet; it’s the forty-year-old novelists and 156 The Hungarian Quarterly