18, 91mins
The Hungarian director Gyorgy Palfi is no great fan of humanity, if his grotesque but compelling satire Taxidermia is anything to go by. Mankind is defined by repulsive appetites; sex is equated with freshly butchered meat and the whole thing is lubricated by a torrent of bodily fluids. Were it not for the style and humour with which P?lfi marshals his monstrous images, this would be a very tough watch indeed.
The story follows three generations of one family, and takes place in three eras of Hungarian recent history. The grandfather, a browbeaten soldier and fervent masturbator, has a taste for singeing his extremities with a candle while lasciviously peering at any available flesh. The second segment lampoons the communist bloc’s bullish culture of competition by following his son’s career as a speed-eating champion – those with weak stomachs should avoid. The grandson is an emaciated husk who takes his work as a taxidermist a little too seriously.
There is, no doubt, a serious social commentary under all the vomit, but it takes a committed viewer to dig it out and hose it down.