Director: Gy?rgy P?lfi, 18, 91min
Stars: Csaba Czene, Piroska Moln?r, Gergely Tr?cs?nyi
On selected release
The boundary between art-house cinema and gross-out exploitation flick is well and truly blurred by the second feature film from the Hungarian director P?lfi.
A triptych of portraits of three generations of men from one family, the film is a macabre and visceral exploration of their unusual appetites and urges: a grandfather pursuing his bizarre and dangerous sexual fetishes with a stoic single-mindedness; a son seeking glory as a competitive eater; and a grandson whose career as a taxidermist is encroaching alarmingly into his life.
P?lfi blends a grotesque comedy with images as graphic and grisly as in any horror movie. This is not a film for the weak of stomach; it has been suggested that the film represents Hungary’s socio-political evolution during the second half of the 20th century, but if such an allegory exists it’s well concealed beneath all the buckets of vomit.