Jött egy busz... (2003) Reviews

• this magic bus is not for everyone

  ThurstonHunger2004-03-06

  This film was as fascinating and as frustrating as watching someone else's dreams. I saw it at Cinequest 2004 in San Jose, and observed several audience members slink out. Regrettably I was late to the showing and missed the first of five vignettes. Each of those five and the connecting animation between them were created by different directors. Quite a nice enticement for me to see more Hungarian films. I wonder if working adjacent to colleagues, spurred the directors on to more artistic extremes? We had fetishistic foot-age (with some great odd camera angles), a comic book myth (and effective split screen use), a peculiar look at formulaic film (and really formulaic human behavior), and lastly a soaring gory opera. I've since read online that the opera smartly ties back to the opening "No Comment" vignette I missed. The music in that last piece was tremendous, as sung by the walking wounded and waking dead. The screen tricks in the third piece also were very fun, especially if you love similar use of panels in comic books, being a film in motion, they did nice tricks with dissolves as well. Overall the plot perceptors in your brain will be perplexed by this experience. Even the recipe ingredients in the "formulaic" film are so unpredictable that it feels like a Rube Goldberg contraption set in motion. So turn off those perceptors and let your eyes bask in this often ingenious (and at times infuriating) collection of images and ideas. Again, this is really not for everyone. But I definitely am glad I saw (most of) it. I'd watch it again (not something I often say...) I'd love to know how this was received in Hungary. Also I'm curious what the budget for it was, it surely was not cobbled together from orange rinds and other cast-off materials. 6.5/10