en
On Body and Soul
After 18 long years, Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi returns to international cinema with On Body and Soul, the unconventional love story of two people, each with their own affliction: an aging financial director of an abattoir, and a young, withdrawn meat quality inspector. Shocked by the realization that they share the same dreams, both protagonists begin trying to fulfil them. This eccentric, tactile, yet detached romance, with elements of everyday drama and black comedy, suggestively thematizes the dualities of wakefulness and dreaming, animality and humanity, body and soul. Joining cold observation with unusual emotionality, the film taps a vein of distinctive visuality – from its precise, geometrically composed shots and inconspicuous mingling of lyricism and brutality to its symbolic use of colours and focused work with actors. With its use of allusion and metaphorical dreams to speak to many modern-day societal traumas, it could not be clearer why this of all films came away from this year’s Berlinale with the grand prize – the Golden Bear. Berlin Bear Golden Bear 2017 Oscar nomination - Best Foreign Language Film, Hungary
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After 18 long years, Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi returns to international cinema with On Body and Soul, the unconventional love story of two people, each with their own affliction: an aging financial director of an abattoir, and a young, withdrawn meat quality inspector. Shocked by the realization that they share the same dreams, both protagonists begin trying to fulfil them. This eccentric, tactile, yet detached romance, with elements of everyday drama and black comedy, suggestively thematizes the dualities of wakefulness and dreaming, animality and humanity, body and soul. Joining cold observation with unusual emotionality, the film taps a vein of distinctive visuality – from its precise, geometrically composed shots and inconspicuous mingling of lyricism and brutality to its symbolic use of colours and focused work with actors. With its use of allusion and metaphorical dreams to speak to many modern-day societal traumas, it could not be clearer why this of all films came away from this year’s Berlinale with the grand prize – the Golden Bear.
Berlin Bear Golden Bear 2017
Oscar nomination - Best Foreign Language Film, Hungary