Titanic Doesn't Sink

Journalists are welcome at the festival's closing event, but only to report on the event, not to review the final film - we were told this on Sunday afternoon. The distributor of Vacancy, directed by Nimród Antal, the US director with Hungarian roots, did not want the Hungarian press to review the film before it comes out on general release in Hungary this summer. The horror flick, made on a budget of USD 19 million, was initially received by the Titanic audience with encouraging whistles and ovations as the opening credits rolled and "Directed by Nimrod Antal" appeared. But after 20 minutes, the audience started thinning and few stayed in the Uránia cinema till the end. The theatre was shaken twice by sarcastic laughter: when the protagonist (Luke Wilson) leaves for his final battle with the masked killers and says "I love you" through the floor planks to his wife hiding in the attic; and when the worrying widow leans over her husband after he has lost his battle against the masked killers and he comes back to life - "Can you hear me darling?" - Kate Beckinsale cries.

 

"Such a film would never be shown in Hungarian cinemas, it would hardly even qualify for a video release," I overheard someone say after the screening. "If someone wanted to fool me into renting this, I would kick it back with the end of my umbrella" another voice said.

 

There is no information yet about how the film was received by audiences in America, where 2,600 prints were distributed for a Friday opening. Antal was not present at the European premiere on Sunday, nor did he phone in or use the internet to address the Titanic audience. (The South American director who was awarded the main prize used Skype to express his thanks for the opportunity to show his film at the festival and for the award it received. There was a baby crying in the background, yet he took a few minutes of his time to call Budapest.) 

 

Antal did, however, send a letter in which he acknowledged that the Titanic had provided him the impetus to start a career in feature films: it was after meeting the festival audience that he decided to go further than making music videos and commercials. We send him our patriotic good wishes and hope that he will not become pigeonholed in Hollywood on the basis of Vacancy. That would mean losing a talented director for Hungary, but it would not make any difference to the world.

 

 

The awards ceremony went well, although the affable director of Hukkle and Taxidermia György Pálfi had to step up on stage to correct a speaker who said he was deputy chair of the international critics' organisation FIPRESCI. But that was not the only mistake made that evening.

 

A persistent few stayed at Uránia to watch the festival's winning film while some moved over to Toldi cinema for an extra screening of Wrist Cutters. Others got stuck at the Critical Mass after-party somewhere around Gödör Klub and watched the eco-crowd standing among their bicycles, belching up beer. Instead of car fumes, they added their own gas to that peculiarly fine and invisible fog that continually sits on downtown Pest. And they chuckled when they overheard conversations between teenagers because these kids unknowingly and inadvertently communicated in the style of Antal's "actors."  

 

 

Author: Zsolt Koren