Popular reviews

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ ★★★★★ 8

  FIRST DIARY ENTRY OF 2018

  Poetry. Very subtle, but poetry nonetheless. Intentionally colorless. Arguments could be done regarding how the film's imagery could have benefitted from its colors like Szabó's Bizalom (1980) did emulating auteurish cinematic features of the 60s, but this is confined more in the new wave of experimental Hungarian cinema that began in the 70s along with Huszárik. The colorless scheme elevates simplicity to a fantastical realm subdued by lies and melancholic memories cascading into a dying heart that attaches its will to live to the energy of a past life that might encounter its continuity with a false hope. Love is seen in subjective terms, but desperation leads to these unconventional displays of caring towards others,…

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  Review by Hutch ★★★★½

  Károly Makk’s Love is a quiet, intimate and extraordinary film that nestles in the weariness of lives under pressure and the love they try to sustain. There are three main characters: a husband and wife and the husband’s ailing mother. The old woman is bedridden, living out her last weeks under the care of her housekeeper, Irén, and the regular visits of her daughter-in-law, Luca. János is an absent presence until near the end of the film. He’s been arrested by the Hungarian secret police and Luca doesn’t even know if he is still alive. She lives on in the hope of his return, trying to make ends meet while being forced by the authorities to give away the main…

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  Review by Rebecca Marouf ★★★★★ 4

  This simple and direct film should be described in simple and direct terms. This is what this devastating film deserves. It tells a story of a woman who's slowly losing hope that her husband, a political prisoner, will ever return. She spends most of her time caring for his old, ill mother, making up stories about her son since she does not know his condition.

  The film is quite explicit about the oppressive political environment of the time and what one has to do in order to survive. The protagonist is often a victim due to her association with the prisoner and is constantly kept an eye on. But this is not a heavy-handed film. The shards of memories witnessed…

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  Review by J ★★★★ 5

  waiting, it seems waiting constitutes a third of our lives. several people rummage through the ticking hands of the clock for the right time. others perch by the door until a particular person turns the knob and comes in. while some of us wait anxiously, most of us do it as natural as breathing. it is there whenever we stand in line at the cashier’s until it's our turn; whenever we stand at the platform, at stations until the train, the tram or the bus arrives; whenever we sit in a theatre before the film or the performance begins. we look forward to lunch breaks, dismissals, Fridays, and holidays. we anticipate something will change, opportunities will turn up, and everything…

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  Review by Maryam Vosoughi ★★★★

  "Szerelem" is a black-and-white Hungarian drama about love;
  love of a language,
  love of your books,
  love of Goethe,
  love of recalling things that enriched one's life as one travelled through it,
  love of a beautiful cloth to cover a bedpan,
  love of a lost son,
  love for a missing son,
  enduring love of a missing husband and,
  love between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law, held together by loving the same man...

  "Szerelem" is about "real love".

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  Review by Yavor Ivanov ★★★★½ 1

  The quiet cuts of longing, remembrance and desperation. Bitter, frosty resolve against sweating mind-walls, sacral wishes tiptoeing towards the always impossibly distant North Star.
  A film of remarkable stoic grace and deep silent integrity.

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  Review by Kristof Szabó ★★★★½

  Ingeniously shot and heartrendingly beautiful chamber drama, fragmented memories, a longing for our loved ones and survival under the repressive state all connecting to each other like a spider web. It's simple, straightforward, yet visually complex, ethereal and majestically acted.

  Rest in peace Töröcsik Mari.

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  Review by Zsófi Herczeg ★★★★½ 1

  Lillával szeptemberben lesz 10 éve, hogy ismerjük egymást : Pápai Zsolt Filmelmélet alapozó órája előtt a 34-es teremnél vártunk, és odamentem hozzá, mert emlékeztem rá magyar szakos órákról.

  Szóval 10 éve ismerem Lillát, és a 10 év alatt egyszer sem néztem meg a kedvenc filmjét, de most pótoltam! Azok a montázsok a sírba visznek, de a végén azért csak patakokban folyt a könnyem.

  A filmről amúgy eszembe jutott, amit nagyim mondott, hogy amikor ő volt fiatal, akkor nekik még a téli -10 fokban (mert akkor még brutál telek voltak) is szoknyában, nejlonharisnyában és kis magassarkúban kellett közlekedniük, mert így illett a városi lányoknak, nekik nem volt hótaposó meg bélelt bakancs, meg kötött meleg zokni. Én még az 5 fokban kivillanó tinibokáktól is hidegrázást kapok, meghaltam volna 60 évvel ezelőtt, bár ehhez lehet elég lett volna a kötelező magassarkú.

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  Review by anna 3

  összerándult a gyomrom, amikor törőcsik mari lehúzta a pálinkát

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 1

  I find it hard to describe this film in anything but direct and simple terms. It is a quiet, simple film on the surface, a story of a woman waiting on her husband to return from prison. She spends her time caring for his dying mother, spinning tales to keep from upsetting her. Melancholy hangs over the film as we wait for the inevitable tragedy, no matter what it will turn out to be (will the mother-in-law die? will the woman be dragged off to prison herself? will the husband never return?).

  But underneath that there is a commentary on the duplicities we use to survive and on the political systems of Hungary in the era this was filmed. Little…

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  Review by freelunch ★★★★½ 2

  Hungarian filmmakers really got the sauce. So many great movies yet paid dust on the world stage. Maybe it’s because I’ve been rewatching The Leftovers again, but I’m really loving stories about hope and people’s belief systems and the stories people tell themselves or others out of grief and/or love. Beautiful, intimate filmmaking and Mari Törőcsik is a triumph. The last twenty minutes or so are GRIPPING and use some of the most effective editing I’ve seen in a while. A must watch for Bergman heads and even Alain Resnais fans, oddly enough.

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  Review by SK ★★★★

  Love is a tale of love, longing and memories set against a backdrop of political turmoil. While I'm not really familiar with the political context depicted in the film, it serves as a catalyst for a deeply personal story of Luca and her bedridden mother-in-law. Luca's husband, János, is imprisoned on political charges, leaving Luca to care for his ailing mother. To ease her mother-in-law's pain, Luca fabricates letters from János, offering a glimmer of hope in her final moments. This act of compassion and empathy forms the central narrative, highlighting the bond between Luca and her mother-in-law.

  The film's black-and-white cinematography and jarring editing create a sense of mundanity and the passage of time, essential to the narrative. The…