Nimród Antal's
introductory full-length feature film is at once a ride on the subconscious ghost train of
post-communism and speeding on the multicoloured train of new Hungarian box-office films.
The greatest virtue of Control is that it
is an excellent blend of a usually absent speedy and graphic narrative with a strong and
individual atmosphere - something also missing from Hungarian films.
The work of this writer-director who moved back from the States 13 years
ago is a commercial film in the best sense of the word: its subject alone is designed to
addresses the masses. Due to the film-makers' routine in videos and commercials eyes
trained on TV channels will find it easily comprehensible, yet at the same time the
viewers' repository of knowledge and experience in connection with metro rides is turned
mercilessly inside out. The plot and magic of Control is based on the simple idea
of leading the spectator into a familiar and despised location where creative imagination,
joining forces with the comics of everyday routine situations, keeps offering new
surprises. The most common events gain additional meaning in this inverted world, while
unusual heroes carrying out unusual feats are born in the familiar-alien atmosphere of the
metro - all conducted under the strict rules of film genres. From the moment the
spectator gets onto the escalator with Enikő Eszenyi and reaches the "death
platform", for an hour and a half he becomes a resident of the underground empire of
neon lights and has a chance to get better acquainted with or even reassess his own image
of the metro beyond the hoards of inspectors, caricaturised passengers, mottle-faced
"guvnors" and alcoholic leaders of saints.
Insured
The image of the world of Control may appear both shocking and
completely novel at first sight. Having seen however Nimród Antal's college diploma film,
Insurance (1998), it comes as much less of a surprise, since, as far as the
atmosphere and story are concerned, the director outlines in 31 minutes all that he now
presents in a longer and more rounded variant. The heroes of Insurance are also protozoa
who live on the periphery of society, individuals excluded and despised by
"respectable people": they are professional crashers. Antal's pre-Control figures
await for the commissions of law-breaking citizens in a dark office-cum-pub. Having
reduced the customers' cars to smithereens with audacious professionalism, they hobble out
from the ruins with bleeding skulls and collect their envelopes from the owners. This is
insurance fraud at its peak and according to public opinion the profession of our heroes
is just as despicable - though undoubtedly more manly and exciting - as the work of
inspectors, the hunt for tormented passengers. The hero of Insurance (played by
Győző Szabó) is a physically and spiritually burdened figure who, having visions before
every crash of mutilated and groaning colleagues, is continuously battling with his own
devil just like Control's Bulcsú. As the plot evolves the director dissolves
tension with small colour genre pictures and reveals to us with the depths of the psyche
of crashers. Sándor Badár, Zoltán Mucsi, Lajos Kovács and Csaba Pindroch (the future
controllers) enliven the story with sad inserts, while the figure of Győző Szabó
prepares for the most difficult deployment of his career. At the end of the film he
staggers out liberated from the filthy alley, leaving behind him shudders, demons, a Lada
broken to bits and the astonished János Derzsi.
Subordinated
Interestingly enough it is Béla Tarr's favourite Hungarian actor from
whom the hero of Insurance takes leave and whom Bulcsú, the hero of Control,
first encounters. The figure of János Derzsi serves as a link between the two related
stories: it's as if the crash-specialist tired of the ugliness of the asphalt world had
descended underground to continue his miserable life among the even stranger species of
the inspector/homeless. Dressed in a leather coat and hooded sweater, Bulcsú (Sándor
Csányi) - whose past is unknown to us - works in the capacity of a ticket controller
at the head of his shoddy team, dispassionately tolerating the hatred of passengers.
Despite the daily beatings and humiliations he's in pretty good nick. Similarly to Fred
(Christopher Lambert) in Luc Besson's Metro he too lives as an unusual stranger in
the world of the underground - though Bulcsú makes no brilliant arrival in the opening
sequence of the film - and manages to find the right tone with the other sub-creatures.
His whole character is mere enigma and empathy. This hero who ,despite moving with
familiarity in the passenger and working areas, is both homeless and reticent appears so
contradictory that all the other figures who colour the story - according to the
dramaturgy of Insurance - are eclipsed by him. They have been contracted as
"controlling comedians" to fill in the blind spots and provide atmosphere.
While in Luc Besson's film made in 1985 each new person and adventure
serves to diversify beyond the character of the hero the figures of supporting actors and
present an increasingly colourful underground hierarchy, the work of Nimród Antal's is a
one-man drama in which the force of the schizophrenic storyline firmly subordinates the
real figures - be it enemies, friends or loves - to Bulcsú's double self.
In a Chunnel
We are witnesses to the fight between good and bad - the battling of
the single mind of a inspector. The dark tunnels of the metro symbolise the convolutions
of his brain. It is no surprise therefore that the hero is unable to get out into the
sunlight and pass beyond his own thoughts. According to Jiři Menzel the greatest fault of
television lies in broadcasting information as a one-way channel that opens no space for
the multitude of interpretations. Similarly to TV Control leads the spectator along
a single channel, a swift tunnel and, though the film's indispensable dynamism is owed
also to the metro, the travelling viewer unfortunately gets no look outside the mind of
the hero. The chief virtue of Besson's reference-value film is that it cannot be
categorised within a genre. The audacity with which the director plays with the characters
of the policemen, the metro-dwellers and bodyguards effaces the boundaries of good and bad
and depicts the metro as an unfathomably intricate system. By positioning the inspectors
at the centre, Antal entrusts a single brigade with the role of good (feeble but loveable)
and bad (hunting for dodgers) and puts in the focal point a hero whose schizophrenia
merely intensifies this duality. We see a condensed, one-way story at the end of which the
film-makers have placed a point switch and we watch excitedly to see whether the train
will finally take a left or right turn.
Split
The schizophrenic hero and his deranged gang are the metaphors of
post-communist Hungary. Despite numerous attempts no Hungarian commercial film has been
able to come up with such a strong simile. We've seen CEOs tearing along in wonder cars,
womanizing company directors and ministers turning into bank managers, but even Péter
Gothár's Hungarian Beauty was unable to portray the insanity of society at large. Even if
we tried to we wouldn't be able to find a better setting to illustrate the schizophrenia
of Hungarian society. The scene of our public transport is an enclosed system frequented
by both the fortunate and unfortunate individuals of society. The winners and losers of
the change of regime scrum onto the same escalators and carriages and are forced to stare
at each other during the journey because there's nothing to see from the windows - apart
from one's self. The greatest recognition and lesson of Nimród Antal's film is that our
own unstable mind is the mapping out of schizophrenic society; that we are all one and we
travel and dodge together. Almost fifteen years after the change of regime the sense of
justice of an average passenger dictates him to tell the inspector to "bugger
off" when the latter, in accordance to market rules calls him to accountfor the
countervalue of the provided service. The underground is the subconscious ghost train of
post-communism and Control is the calling to account.
Bearing in Mind
Alfred Hitchcock said the following at a 1949 Hollywood press
conference: "My aim has always been to give viewers a kind of a gratifying moral
shock. Civilization today has become so secure that it is unable to satisfy our needs to
shudder. That's why this shock has to be ensured artificially. This is the only way to
relax, the only way to regain our moral equilibrium." Antal has borne in mind the words
of the master of popular films and, although since September 11 the world is considered
less safe, people, just as before, still want to shudder. Moral shudders are not the most
popular community experience in Hungary. Control nevertheless takes on the task of
confrontation and with the help of its routine in the language of films manages to force
the bitter pill down the throat of a surprising number of viewers. For the sake of easier
digestion the director parades the elements of numerous genres that dramaturgically serve
to give a more varied portrayal of the principle hero's character. The elements of
thrillers heighten the excitement of victory over the evil ego, the elements of comedy
emphasise Bulcsú's silence, while the love story justifies poets who, according to Woody
Allen recognise that there's no other consolation in life (Hannah and Sisters). Antal
depicts an astonishing image of the world through the proportionate blending of elements
from various genres. In spite of not being able to interpret his message without the odd
hitch, he has made a creative film intended for the wide public.
(The pictures used were taken by Balázs Hujber and borrowed from the
film's website - the editor)