A COPY OF AN E-MAIL I SENT TO SOMEONE:
I haven’t seen BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974, BOB CLARK), but someone told me the DVD of this film is on sale in Thailand for a price of 1.5 U.S. dollar. I think I should try to find it as soon as possible.
I wish I could have time to see HUKKLE (2001, GYORGY PALFI) for the second time. I couldn’t follow the story about the murder (?) when I watched it the first time. At first I thought this film had no story, so I didn’t focus my mind on what I should have focused. I realized it too late. Anyway, I think I can find the DVD of HUKKLE very easily here.
I just saw TAXIDERMIA (2006, GYORGY PALFI, A+). I like it a lot. Somebody might call it pretentious or over-the-top, but I like it. It’s a wonder to behold. It’s a great spectacle for me. I don’t know if this film is really aesthetically great or not, but I really enjoy it.
I like the grotesqueness of this film. TAXIDERMIA is full of disgusting characters and images, but the director makes it very beautiful. The “DISGUSTING BEAUTY” of this film reminds me of “4” (2005, Ilya Khrzhanovsky, A+) and “A BATTLE IN HEAVEN” (Carlos Reygadas, A+). So if you like the mood of “4” and “A BATTLE IN HEAVEN”, I think you might like TAXIDERMIA, too. I wish the characters of these three films meet each other in a party and have an orgy.
I wish I could have enough time to watch more Hungarian movies. I have seen some films by Bela Tarr, Ildiko Enyedi, Kornel Mundruczo, and Istvan Szabo. DVDs of Marta Meszaros, Karoly Makk, Miklos Jancso, and Nimrod Antal are also available in Thailand, but I don’t know when I will have time to watch them. TAXIDERMIA really inspires me to watch more Hungarian movies. I think the films of Ildiko Enyedi and Istvan Szabo that I saw are very good, but not outstanding. The films of Bela Tarr and Kornel Mundruczo are great, but the slowness of these films doesn’t excite me much. I think TAXIDERMIA is not as great as Bela Tarr’s films, but TAXIDERMIA made me feel excited for a short while. For a crude comparison of feelings, watching Bela Tarr’s films is like watching Tarkovsky’s, while watching TAXIDERMIA is like watching SUSPIRIA. TAXIDERMIA and SUSPIRIA don’t give me many things to think, and don’t make me feel as if I have discovered some (ugly) truths of the world. I guess I like TAXIDERMIA partly because it’s just a different kind of entertainment.
[...] I also wrote something about TAXIDERMIA in my blog here: http://celinejulie.wordpress.com/2007/04/09/hungry-for-hungarian-films/ [...]
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Hi, the only Black Christmas DVD I’ve seen on sale in Bangkok is a remake, unfortunately not the original.
I also loved “Taxidermia”, and “Battle In Heaven”, though I haven’t seen “4″ yet and will track it down when I can.
Mat.
Comment by Mat Hunt — May 5, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
–Good news!!!! I got the DVD of BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974) from Mangpong shop on the seventh floor of Mahboonkrong Center. The price on the cover is 59 baht. But actually the real price is half of that, because Mangpong uses the policy “BUY 1 GET 1 FREE”, so when I bought BLACK CHRISTMAS, I also chose a DVD of CAMPFIRE (2004, Joseph Cedar) for the free stuff.
Be sure when you buy BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974), you see the name of MARGOT KIDDER on the cover. So you know you get the right one.
–One of the best things about TAXIDERMIA is that it can miraculously escape the censorship board. Hahaha.
–When you watch “4″, I have to warn you that the first 30-minutes of this film might be slow, but just hold on, and then the film will shift its gear to go into the realm of full-blown insanity.
Comment by celinejulie — May 5, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
[...] BELOW IS MY COMMENT IN MY BLOG IN REPLY TO MATTHEW HUNT: http://celinejulie.wordpress.com/2007/04/09/hungry-for-hungarian-films/#comment-25 [...]
Pingback by WHERE CAN I GO WITHOUT YOU? « Limitless Cinema in Broken English — May 6, 2007 @ 1:24 am
Thanks for the info, I’ll go to MBK ASAP. It’s amazing about Taxidermia being uncensored. House Rama bought the distribution rights in Cannes, so they must have known that they could get it shown. My guess is that they simply didn’t submit it to the censors and that, because it’s Hungarian and House is an arthouse venue, nobody noticed. But it’s only a guess. (Anatomy Of Hell at the Bangkok Film Festival 2005 was equally explicit, but of course that’s a festival so there’s [slightly] more freedom.)
Comment by Mat Hunt — May 7, 2007 @ 12:55 pm
Yes, I also watched ANATOMY OF HELL (A+) in the festival at Emporium. I think Thailand has a law which excludes films in the festivals from the censorship. This law was just passed a few years ago. Before that, some evil Thai censors also tried to prevent some films from being screened in the festival. They tried to prevent BUGIS STREET (1995, Yonfan, A-) from being shown in the Bangkok Film Festival, though the film has nothing explicit. They also tried to prevent JESUS IS A PALESTINIAN (1999, Lodewijk Crijns, A-), which has an explicit sexual scene, from being shown in the festival, but Brian Bennett, the festival organizer, did a truly great thing to solve this problem. He decided to show this film for free. The law of Thailand at that time said that the censors couldn’t have any right to stop the film if it was show for free.
Speaking of ANATOMY OF HELL, I somehow think of the new movie which is being shown at Lido–VALLEY OF FLOWERS (2006, Pan Nalin, A-). I maybe wrong, but I think these two movies might be an antithesis of each other. ANATOMY OF HELL seems to tell me that some people regard the female body as “hell”, but they are wrong. The female body is just the female body, not “hell”. But VALLEY OF FLOWERS seems to present the female body as a fatal trap for men, as something which can lure men into unhappiness and hell.
Comment by celinejulie — May 7, 2007 @ 9:27 pm
[...] FAVORITE CZECH FILMS Filed under: Uncategorized — celinejulie @ 11:03 pm BELOW IS MY REPLY TO MATTHEW HUNT IN MY BLOG: http://celinejulie.wordpress.com/2007/04/09/hungry-for-hungarian-films/ [...]
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