This Hungarian nominee for Oscar best foreign language film is quite a gem. The story starts in a rather gruesome workplace, a slaughter house for beef. The establishing scenes include scenes not intended to be sensational but nevertheless bloody, depicting the slaughter house's normal daily work routines. If this was, instead, an accountant's office, it will undoubtedly put you to sleep. But, this being a slaughter house....
In absolute contrast, there is great, serene beauty of a small lake in the middle of a snow-covered forest, with a deer or two (or doe, a deer, a female deer) trotting about leisurely, staying absolutely still at times, and occasionally taking a drink of water. About one third into the move, you find out what this is all about.
Art-house style slow-paced and at times a tad surreal, this movie has a very clear, down-to-earth central theme - how two total strangers click, and connect. For example, in "The bridges of Madison County", it is an inconsequential phone call which she takes from the wall-mounted phone behind him, her hand coming down to rest on his shoulder nonchalantly, and his hand coming up to touch hers. In "On body and soul", the connection is simple: dreams.
He is the finance head of the company. She is a new quality control inspector. Other than being slightly handicapped, with an immobile left arm, he is quite normal, with a reserved but not particularly taciturn persona. She, however, has some kind of autistic problem although it is not definitively stated in the movie. Right from the beginning, he shows an interest in her but his mild attempts are met with rigid responses.
The main body of the movie (and its soul, as well) is depicts, wonderfully detailed, the interaction between them. It soon becomes apparent that she has an interest in him as well but is completely at a loss as to how to express it. The turning point comes from a minor crime committed in the organization which becomes instrumental to bringing in a criminology psychologist. Everybody is considered a suspect and questioned. Separately, our protagonist each recounts an identical dream, the idyllic snow scene we see earlier, with only one difference - he is the deer and she the doe. Naturally the psychologist treats this as a practical joke and confronts them together. This is how they discover this inexplicable phenomenon and start comparing notes, literally, of their dreams. It will be a failure of a film if things go smoothly from here on. At the end of a somewhat rocky trajectory, the climax is what one critically brilliantly describe as going "from tragic to farcical in a few seconds". There is a happy ending (apologies for the spoiler), and excellent closure (about the dreams).
The support cast, very watchable, includes among other:
The two leads, Geza Morcsanyi and Alexandra Borbely, did well in projecting the characters they portray. Borbely, if you are a fan of "Downton Abbey", has an uncanny resemblance of Joanna Froggatt (Anna Bates in the series).
Generally art-house melancholic in tone, this movie does not lack in provoking moments of chuckle and smile not unlike those from sit-coms.
In absolute contrast, there is great, serene beauty of a small lake in the middle of a snow-covered forest, with a deer or two (or doe, a deer, a female deer) trotting about leisurely, staying absolutely still at times, and occasionally taking a drink of water. About one third into the move, you find out what this is all about.
Art-house style slow-paced and at times a tad surreal, this movie has a very clear, down-to-earth central theme - how two total strangers click, and connect. For example, in "The bridges of Madison County", it is an inconsequential phone call which she takes from the wall-mounted phone behind him, her hand coming down to rest on his shoulder nonchalantly, and his hand coming up to touch hers. In "On body and soul", the connection is simple: dreams.
He is the finance head of the company. She is a new quality control inspector. Other than being slightly handicapped, with an immobile left arm, he is quite normal, with a reserved but not particularly taciturn persona. She, however, has some kind of autistic problem although it is not definitively stated in the movie. Right from the beginning, he shows an interest in her but his mild attempts are met with rigid responses.
The main body of the movie (and its soul, as well) is depicts, wonderfully detailed, the interaction between them. It soon becomes apparent that she has an interest in him as well but is completely at a loss as to how to express it. The turning point comes from a minor crime committed in the organization which becomes instrumental to bringing in a criminology psychologist. Everybody is considered a suspect and questioned. Separately, our protagonist each recounts an identical dream, the idyllic snow scene we see earlier, with only one difference - he is the deer and she the doe. Naturally the psychologist treats this as a practical joke and confronts them together. This is how they discover this inexplicable phenomenon and start comparing notes, literally, of their dreams. It will be a failure of a film if things go smoothly from here on. At the end of a somewhat rocky trajectory, the climax is what one critically brilliantly describe as going "from tragic to farcical in a few seconds". There is a happy ending (apologies for the spoiler), and excellent closure (about the dreams).
The support cast, very watchable, includes among other:
- The aforementioned criminology psychologist, voluptuous and desirable - at the first shot, before even showing her face, the camera shows a close up of her well-shaped bosom (decently clothed) from our male protagonist's POV
- Our female protagonist's childhood psychiatrist that she still retains, despite his polite reminder that his specialty is psychology of children, not grown women
- An elderly women genitor who volunteers to be her image consultant for attracting men
- A newly hired worker, sort of a lady's man
- The non-nonsense detective
The two leads, Geza Morcsanyi and Alexandra Borbely, did well in projecting the characters they portray. Borbely, if you are a fan of "Downton Abbey", has an uncanny resemblance of Joanna Froggatt (Anna Bates in the series).
Generally art-house melancholic in tone, this movie does not lack in provoking moments of chuckle and smile not unlike those from sit-coms.