SZELOD TEREMTES - A FRANKENSTEIN TERV (TENDER SON - THE FRANKENSTEIN PROJECT)
Hungary, 2010, 105 minutes, Colour.
Rudolf Frecska, Kornel Mundruczo, Lili Monori.
Directed by Cornel Mundruczo.
The key to this film is that it states that it has been ‘inspired by’ Mary Shelley. This sets up an expectation for those who like making connections between the plot of the film and the Frankenstein story. For those who take the plot as it comes, it may well be a quite different experience.
Viktor (played by Kornel Mandrusczo, the film’s director) is a successful theatre director but is now casting for a film in a dilapidated Budapest building which is to be knocked down. He conducts auditions (thus making new creatures of his cast and giving them new lives). An impassive young man does not audition well but the director gives him a chance with a young aspiriting actress, with disastrous consequences. Is he a monster?
The young man is sheltered in the building by his mother whom he had been seeking. He is attracted to another girl who lives there and wants to marry here. The director returns to help him escape and they drive to the Tirol and into the snow.
This variation on the Frankenstein theme (who is a monster and what makes a monster) has some brutal action but is also a contemplative piece with some strangely beautiful photography with snow falling and in the mountain sequences.
1. A different film, in content, style, themes?
2. Hungarian film-making, the Budapest setting, the road and the long opening sequence on the highway, the main action in the decaying building, the interiors, the courtyard, the inner court? The road towards the Tyrol, the Tyrol and the snow?
3. Inspired by Mary Shelley, the connections, the parallels with the original, the adaptation?
4. The director, with the director himself acting the role, driving, in the city, his talking on the phone about casting, the radio interview and his play, the relevance of 19th century stories like The Count of Monte Cristo? His personal project?
5. The woman in the building, bringing in the Christmas tree, the lights, the sparkler? His paying the rent? Using the building for the filming? The auditions, asking the young actors to cry, the initial young man, the two men who couldn't cry? The woman and her sad scene?
6. Rudi, getting off the tram, buying the flowers, not for the cemetery? Walking, the flowers in the pot for his mother? The form and no information and background? Being asked to cry, not crying but saying he was? The seduction sequence, his violent reaction? Going into the other room, the camera and the screen, the filming stopping? The young girl, being fired, trying to get a role, the blacking of the screen? Her death?
7. The dead girl, Rudi fleeing, yet staying in the building?
8. Victor, creating Rudi as father, wanting to create him as an actor? The police?
9. The father of the girl, going berserk, his wife urging him to search for the killer, his return, seeing Rudi and Magda, his threats to Magda, Rudi killing him?
10. Rudi hiding, the encounters with his mother, asking her questions about his past, her giving him shelter, his washing, eating? Seeing Magda? His being alone, his wanting a wife? The preparations for a marriage, the plans, the mother ironing the wedding dress, Magda and Rudi eating the peaches, the interruption by the father?
11. Magda, having no family, ready to be the bride, helping Rudi, attracted towards him, the wedding?
12. Rudi, the confrontation with his mother, the threats, her death?
13. Victor, helping Rudi escape, driving, the questions about his being a father, his wanting a career and being young and not caring, Rudi trying to escape, his father tying him up, into the snow, the crash?
14. Rudi, his wounds, Victor going for help, lost in the snow?
15. The theme of the Frankenstein monster, the role of the monster, different from the rest of society, created by society?
16. The visual style, the strange beauty, a variation on the Frankenstein theme?
