An award-winning festival favorite, this surreal Hungarian odyssey through Budapest's sinister subway system is a thrillingly fast-paced black comedy delight.
Rapidly becoming The Little Cult Movie That Could, the Hungarian black comedy Kontroll has amazed festival audiences from Toronto to Cannes, where it won the Prix de la Jeunesse award (the film has also won awards at fests in Copenhagen, Warsaw and Chicago!). How does an independent directorial debut set entirely within the bowels of Budapest's subway system become such an international sensation? For starters, by being one of the most exciting and ingenious genre hybrids to come along in quite some time: imagine a seedy but pulse-pounding fusion of Jim Jarmusch and Run Lola Run infused with a peculiarly Eastern European mordant wit, and you would be about halfway there. Writer-director Nimrod Antal's film unfolds exclusively in Budapest's subways and subterranean stations, focusing on a group of ragged ticket attendants routinely assigned the city's worst routes. Weary Bulcsu (Sandor Csanyi) leads the group, as they patrol the underground and routinely battle with belligerent passengers . . . though Bulcsu is more interested in the beautiful, enigmatic young woman who rides the rails clad in a bear suit. But soon Bulcsu has more grave concerns: a hooded killer is stalking the subway lines, murdering passengers by pushing them in front of trains. A feast of pure heady cinematic energy and pokerfaced humor, Kontroll's reputation as an international crowd-pleaser is only bound to expand with its screenings here. (Hungarian with English subtitles) -- Travis Crawford
it's like good will hunting but not as good. it's like clerks sorta but not as good. it's like an overhyped movie but not as good. very disappointingly boring.
it's just blah and unremarkable. maybe i don't get hungarian humor. or filmmaking. 7.1/10.0.
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