The Hungarian Quarterly, 1996 (41. évfolyam, 160. szám)
THEATRE AND FILM - Erzsébet Bori: Brave New Cinema (Kornél Mundruczó, András Fésös, Frigyes Gödrös)
Erzsébet Bori Brave New Cinema Kornél Mundruczó: Nincsen nekem vágyam semmi (This I Wish and Nothing More) András Fésős: Balra a nap nyugszik (Seaside, Dusk) • Frigyes Gödrös: Glamour F or many long years, we have been short on cinematic debuts in Hungary. Entire classes of directors have graduated from the Academy without producing a feature film as their diploma work, without an opportunity to introduce themselves. Last year, this negative trend was reversed, and this year has seen a real breakthrough. At the Budapest Film Week in February, it was the directors showing their first films who created the sensation; and, once the summer doldrums were over, distributors plucked up their courage: this autumn, three full-length first films were showing in Budapest cinemas. Kornél Mandruczó (This I Wish And Nothing More) was twenty-four, a second-year student director, when he was given his chance; András Fésős (Seaside, Dusk) is just under thirty; while Frigyes Gödrös (Glamour) was something of an outsider. He came from the world of amateur filmmaking, proving at the age sixty that it's never too late to begin—even for some one who, for decades, was not allowed to get any closer than that to the industry. This 1 Wish And Nothing More created something of a storm, chiefly because of its bold choice of subject. Its protagonists are from the gay scene, in which they are a sort of underclass, rent-boys hanging around an elegant Danube promenade, waiting for their clients. This is a world unknown to most filmgoers, whose familiarity with these types—if any—is limited to the movie screen: the kids from the Piazza del Popolo and the boy gang in Gus Van Sant's My Home, Idaho, a tribute to Pasolini. Not until the characters are riding the cable-car up to Buda Castle and come out with the words "I'd like to be Alain Delon, wearing sun glasses day and night" do we find where the film's title comes from—a song by the alternative ska band Channel Two. It also takes some time to work out just who is who, what he does, and who his partner is. At first, the character called Daddy might be taken to be Bruno's father, whose new family is not too happy to see the prodigal son born of the first marriage, and it's easy to interpret the "TWo boys and one girl" triangle in the traditional way as well. The four of them are protagonists: the well-heeled lawyer, formerly a family man, with a crush on rentboy Bruno, giving him money, taking him into his house, and getting him out of Erzsébet Bori is the regular film critic of The Hungarian Quarterly. 155 Theatre & Film