Kontroll (aka Control) (Hungary) (2003)

[hengcs]

The official website is
www.kontrollfilm.hu/

It is also Hungary's submission for Oscar this year. ;)
Recently, it has won the Gold Hugo, the top prize for the Chicago International Film Festival.

What is it ...
-------------
- The movie has a mix of thriller and comedy.
- The entire movie is filmed underground at the subway, about the life of the subway inspectors and the commuters.

What I like about the movie?
----------------------------
- It has a lot of symbolism amidst realism.
- When you expect something to happen, nothing happens; but when you expect nothing to happen, something happens.
- The soundtrack is rather different and interesting.

What may some people not like about the movie?
------------------------------------------------
- It does not explain everything, so you would have to think and figure it out yourself


My take: GO WATCH IT !!!
;)

[arsaib4]

Kontroll was certainly one of my surprise "finds" from the Toronto Fest. this year and I've talked a little about the film in that thread. It was after quite a while that I truly enjoyed a thriller and I'm looking forward to seeing it again upon it's release in the U.S next year. As you mentioned, it is the film nominated by Hungary for this year's Oscars and the film also won the top award at the recently completed Chicago film festival.

[hengcs]

Hi arsaib4,
thanks for informing ... I went to read.
;)

[arsaib4]

Kontroll, the first feature by Hungarian director Nimrod Antal primarily deals with the daily life of a ticket inspector in the Budapest subway system named Balscu (Sandor Csanyi) and if this sounds like another somber Eastern European art-piece where the camera solemnly follows its subject then that would be incorrect as it's anything but that. Kontroll is a flashy, kinetic thriller where the look of the film plays as important a part as any of its characters.

On one hand the U.S. born Antal is clearly influenced by the David Fincher model of cinema as he uses the various sounds and lights protruding from the winding tunnels for his benefit, but on the other hand he also seems to be documenting the lives of his many characters as they might exist in the present day Hungary abusing their powers as they are in "Kontroll." Hungary is described by Antal himself in the film's press book as an economically challenged country which might be part of the "third world" along with many surrounding nations if they weren't, in fact, a part of Europe.

The film lets loose the inspector/guard and the rest of the crew on their opposition consisting of various subway system dwellers/trouble makers along with a hooded serial killer who enjoys pushing people onto the tracks, including a leggy blonde in the beginning. Even though the crew doesn’t always succeed - partly due to the fact that they aren’t the most civilized bunch themselves - the director certainly seems to be having a ball watching them act like the rodents in the system as he has concocted many situations around their behavioral patterns. That leaves the narrative itself to be slightly uneven and the film's constant piss-and-vinegar tone might turn-off a few but this black comedy/thriller has enough up its sleeve to keep one satisfied. One thing that has become obvious with the success of the film is that even the land of Béla Tarr is being ruled by Hollywood stuntmen.

Kontroll (http://www.thinkfilmcompany.com/data/vault/kontroll/kontroll_405_600.jpg) - Grade: B

*The film was released by ThinkFilm Inc. in NY on April 1st.

[hengcs]

Hi arsaib4,

(1) did you rewatch it again? or simply post a review based on prior screening?

(2) are there any extras in the DVD (like the Hungarian version)? If yes, is there anything interesting?


My 1 cent worth:

One of the main strengths of the movie is: there are lots of symbolisms/parallels.
e.g., why the entire movie is filmed underground
e.g., why the female protagonist is always in a costume,
etc etc etc

Maybe you would like to add some of the symbolisms that you think there is (if any).

[arsaib4]

I did skim through Kontroll's DVD and its extra features but didn't add much to what I had written earlier; nothing else needed to be said really, except perhaps the fact that the director wrote the screenplay in English first before translating it. (By the way, I have the screener-copy of the British disc which is coming out next week.) At this point Nimrod Antal seems to be the kind of filmmaker who've seen films like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction a little too many times, but more importantly, likes them for all the wrong reasons. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if his next outing is a big Hollywood sequel. This is such a modish effort that it's hard to come up with any substantial meaning for the proceedings. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine film but the kind that one can enjoy (because it's well made) w/out much effort.

[hengcs]

Kontroll opened in New York on Apr 1 and in Los Angeles on April 22. If it does well enough, it should open in other cities over the summer.

An interview with the director

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/topnews.php?id=8992

;)

[Chris Knipp]

I saw this movie today and was very absorbed by it. The director's future or the politics aside, it worked very well on its own and I will probably write a review since it only just opened (June 2005) here in this part of the country (northern California); it opened in April in NYC as you note, the same time as Oldboy, which I saw there, and I remember the two of them opening then in NYC because Armond Whilte took pleasure in trashing them jointly as twin signs of the decline of human civilization and the triumph of mindless hipness over humanistic values in film as exemplified by Antonioni. Nonsense: they're both good, visually and aurally rich cinematic experiences full of invention. Maybe the US Ring II with Naomi Watts is slick emptiness, as was commented by some critics when it came out at around the same time as these other two; I can't say because I did not go out to see that one. I would give Kontroll a B+.

[arsaib4]

What is "nonsense" to you may not be to someone else; I didn't like Old Boy either. I wasn't exactly "absorbed" by anything in Kontroll but I enjoyed it for what it was.

[Chris Knipp]

What is "nonsense" to you may not be to someone else; I didn't like Old Boy either Indeed, but our nonsense is different from Armond White's. If you "didn't like" Kontroll, why would you give it even a B? That's very nice of you. I'd like to wait till I can post a review for further discussion though.

[arsaib4]

If you actually read what I said, you'd notice that I wrote "I didn't like Old Boy." Please, try not to make-up stuff in the future. I've stopped responding to such posts.

[Chris Knipp]

You said "I didn't like Oldboy either."

That would normally mean one of two things: (1) that you didn't like it, just as you didn't like Kontroll, or (2) that you agreed with me in not liking Oldboy. But I have not said that I disliked Oldboy, so (2) seems not to fit here.

How do you understand the meaning of "either," then?

[arsaib4]

Since your original comment referred to Armond White's review, that's what I meant. Or, in other words, I agreed with Armond White on Old Boy.

[Chris Knipp]

I see. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'll try to put my further comments on Kontroll into a review if I have time.

[Chris Knipp]

Nimród Antal: Kontroll (2003)

Review by Chris Knipp

Dark victory

[****possible spoilers****]

Kontroll is a busy deadbeat romantic thriller about subway conductors. That's all that "kontroll" really means: just surprise-checking passengers to see if they've got a ticket or a valid pass. At first the action seems a bit slow -- unless you regard dropping your face into your ketchup, having a nosebleed, or puking as exciting events. And when the checking starts, the motley, comical passengers -- flirty gay men, abusive Japanese tourists, drunken whores and snotty pimps, a sweet girl in a bear costume (Szofi, Eszter Balla), men who stammer and men who shoot foam -- are all incredibly uncooperative. But the movie finds a compelling rhythm and a dark music (the music is great throughout) that draw you in and hold you till the end. The flow is so continual and the reliance on long tracking shots so frequent I was reminded of Sokorov's dreamlike Russian Ark.

Kontroll has come in for some incredible abuse for its "callous violence" and "smart-ass humor;" it's even been accused of heralding (with Oldboy) a yet further decline into nihilistic, anti-human techno-hipness. And maybe that's true. But how come the plot feels so sweet and positive? There must be some uniquely Hungarian schizophrenia at play here. Beyond the constant but largely ineffectual action is a dark comedy and a boychick-meets-girlchick story with some horror and a symbolic war of good and evil going on, in which the good wins and the languishing hero, a kind of sallow prince charming, finds his damsel and turns away from darkness toward the light. It's like some dark gooey pastry with a delicate dab of sweet custard at the core.

Anyway they're in teams, these checkers. The movie never leaves their subterranean worksite; and because the main character, Bulcsú (Sándor Csányi) never leaves it either, we get the feeling this is a wholly subterranean society. But that's not quite true. The others go up into the light sometimes, and even Bulcsú seems about to do at the end when he gets his girl and defeats the bad guy. She leads him to the big escalator, which beckons like a stairway to heaven.

Bulcsú heads the most ragtag of the teams. All of them roam the system and compete with each other both formally and in wild unsupervised games like "railing" -- a death-defying footrace along the tracks in the wee hours after all but one train has stopped running.

There's a tall, lusty-voiced young narcolept, Muci (Csaba Pindroch), a young footballer type (Tibor AKA Tibi, Zsolt Nagy), an older man who's had an operation (The Professor, Zoltán Mucsi), a little wily gypsy type (Lecsó, Sándor Badár), and others I can't identify -- I'm just not good at Hungarian names. The hero, Bulcsú, once seems to have been an architect; he practiced some profession, anyway, and when he meets a former colleague it comes out that he once was someone of enormous promise and skill. He seems to have gone under, literally and figuratively. Now he sleeps on the subway platforms in his clothes like a homeless person. He has red blotches on his face that look like nasty bruises or herpes. As time goes on some of his teammates get them too.

Occasionally Antal's camera takes a minute to show some architectural wonder of the system: surprisingly white and graceful arches sweeping away from a line of tracks; huge central vents like eyes; banks of glitteringly lit escalators -- and these pauses are moments of serene beauty. Mostly though the camera likes to shift, a bit too randomly sometimes, between the motley crew and ludicrous passengers, when Bulcsú's team is struggling to do their unwelcome checking. Is there a late-blooming critique of communist bureaucracy here? These subway workers are outcasts, the underclass of the underworld, so their attempt to enforce regulations is ridiculous.

Béla (Lajos Kovács), a bearded stocky fellow, is the only driver of a train in the cast. He makes some grievous errors, but with his cozy little meals by candlelight, his sips and smokes and infectious calm, he's a very winning picture of Eastern European gemülichkeit. Opposed to him are the bureacrats of the subway system, the "suits," their leader with a big dark red birthmark, who spy on the kontroll group and mean trouble.

Worse evil is present in the form of a hooded figure in black, whose face we never see, who's pushing people randomly in front of trains. The final "railing" episode is a contest between this bad guy and Bulcsú that Bulcsú just barely seems to win. Eventually the hooded devil falls prey to his own tricks. He also has an innocent counterpart, a young, athletic man, a sort of Ariel to his Caliban, who teases Tibi and gets pursued in a mad dash along the platforms by Bulcsú's team. There are quite a few physical stunts in Kontroll but no tricky special effects.

Eventually Bulcsú finds out the sweet Szofi in her teddy bear outfit is down there so much because she's Béla's daughter. He also learns she likes him. He loves Béla, so that's perfect. The movie's a grab bag: at one point the director squeezes a series of lightning comical psychiatric interviews for the conductors and a lot of the passengers. Kontroll's universality is so lighthearted it reads as a running joke.

A big dance takes place late one night at the film's end, a sort of underground rave with Venetian style carnival masks and happy, frenetic partners. As planned, our hero meets Szofi there and the sweet finale falls into place. Kontroll is an appealing and stylistically unified blend of darkness and light. It's hard to see what all the snideness and fuss was about, but less difficult to see how this inventive and original movie got Hungary back into Cannes for the first time in two decades.

[oscar jubis]

An actual transit worker introduces the film by warning us not to confuse Kontroll's characters and their antics with actual Hungarian ticket inspectors and their modus operandi. I guess there are potential filmgoers out there who'd confuse anything in this grungy pulp fantasy with reality. Pulp fantasies can be fun though. Those who've read my posts know that, although not enamored of films like Kill Bill, Oldboy and Sin City, they've provided me with entertainment and diversion. I wasn't expecting to learn anything about real life or real people from Kontroll. I just wanted an engaging, fun movie with an original idea or two. What I got was a derivative one full of recycled bad taste. The gimmick of setting the action entirely underground wore off quickly. One is left with a series of chases, fights and showdowns and a lot of pissing, bleeding and puking.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Kontroll has come in for some incredible abuse for its "callous violence" and "smart-ass humor;" it's even been accused of heralding (with Oldboy) a yet further decline into nihilistic, anti-human techno-hipness. And maybe that's true.

I think it is. Hoberman also accurately points out Antal being "tickled by the release of bodily fluids". Not a problem per se, but Antal's film is bereft of substance and originality. Like arsaib4 (who liked Kontroll to some extent), I wouldn't be surprised to find Antal back where he was born and raised, directing a Hollywood sequel.

[Chris Knipp]

I can't expect you to like the movie, but since you chose to post your remarks here right after my review rather than just on your own personal film journal thread, I wish you'd given some more consideration to the positive things I and others have said about Kontorll, and in so doing, granted that it might have something going for it -- a conventional debating device, to give a nod to one's opponents and concede a few points to the opposition. It makes it look like you're broad minded. It can actually weaken your opponent's position more than a blind negation of what he's said. I had to do that for Sin City, which I surely must have disliked as much as you disliked this. As it is, you quoted me so far out of context I don't see why you bothered to quote me at all. Let's look at what I actually wrote.
Kontroll has come in for some incredible abuse for its "callous violence" and "smart-ass humor;" it's even been accused of heralding (with Oldboy) a yet further decline into nihilistic, anti-human techno-hipness. And maybe that's true. But how come the plot feels so sweet and positive? There must be some uniquely Hungarian schizophrenia at play here. Beyond the constant but largely ineffectual action is a dark comedy and a boychick-meets-girlchick story with some horror and a symbolic war of good and evil going on, in which the good wins and the languishing hero, a kind of sallow prince charming, finds his damsel and turns away from darkness toward the light. It's like some dark gooey pastry with a delicate dab of sweet custard at the core I can't see that you dealt with that. Not only is your post not detailed enough to be considered a review, or a reply to mine; it's also a distortion of what I said; it links the film with other films it has no real connection to; and it links you with (1) a good critic at a less than brilliant moment (Hoberman) and an over-the-top one (Armond White) in one of his more extreme recent declarations. If you want to link yourself with White that's your choice, if an odd one for someone as mild mannered and generous as yourself. But I wish you'd considered the other side and replied to some of my positive points about Kontroll to justify posting right after my review. I can tell you that Sin City for me was not "fun." But for me just to say that wouldn't be a review either. Somehow my feeling is that for you Kill Bill I and II were not "entertainment and diversion," though you may have asserted that they were, I don't remember. These generalizations of yours seem somewhat carelessly made, as if you didn't expect me to bother to answer; you'd have spent your time better saying something more specific and enlightening about Kontroll.

In that brief, somewhat ambiguious, and not very impressive review, Hoberman, whom you also quote out of context, hedges his bets by ending with a denigration, but making this callously neutral opening statement:
The most successful Magyar movie of the 21st century, Nimr Antal's Kontroll is an energetic piece of pulp fiction that, still working with old-fashioned film stock and locations, constructs its allegorical Sin City of Dreadful Night in the depths of the Budapest subway system. This is not the excellent JH at his best. Nor it this post you at your best either.

[oscar jubis]

*I think it's good policy to post comments on a film's thread, if there is one, so that those who've seen it and posted before receive notice and have a chance to respond.
*I quoted the lines on your review that relate to my own experience of watching this movie (other than paragraphs that provide description and exposition which, as usual, are accurate, well-written, and fun to read).
*I think those 175-200 words I wrote are more "ink" than Kontroll deserves, given that I derived only miniscule pleasure and no edification from watching it. My reaction to it is so different than yours that I'm struggling to find a way to pursue a meanigful exchange here but I'll try. This "dab of sweet custard" maybe relates to Bela's scene with her daughter and a scene in which he shares lunch with Bulcsu. Two brief ones that appear well into the movie. I never managed to come up with theories as to why Bulcsu lives underground, no clues are provided into what's wrong with him. He remained an enigma. His romance with the girl in the Bunny suit (why?) seemed tacked-on. Are we to assume Bulcsu was just lonely, or devoid of affection and needed a partner to come out of the dark into the light?

[Chris Knipp]

The only trouble is that your post tends to stop discussion rather than encourage it, of Kontroll. Thanks for the favorable comment on my review-writing, but saying you're restricting yourself to your own response is a dodgy thing to say when you've damning a movie in general terms. When we differ most stongly it looks like it's because you look for ideas or moral positions or subject matters or sensitivities that you like in a movie and when you find them you're strongly biased in favor, regardless of other factors, and vice versa.

You devoted enough "ink" to the movie, you just didn't get into the positive elements I'd described or explain why they didn't matter, if you'd grant they're there.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
When we differ most stongly it looks like it's because you look for ideas or moral positions or subject matters or sensitivities that you like in a movie and when you find them you're strongly biased in favor, regardless of other factors, and vice versa.

As I pointed out on my first post here, films like Kill Bill, Old Boy and Sin City, which most definitely do not present "moral positions/subject matter/sensitivities that I like" provided me with entertainment and diversion, which I didn't get from Kontroll. I didn't find the latter offensive, just crass, boring and unoriginal (other than it being set entirely underground).

[Chris Knipp]

Too bad. More adjectives.