A mere three years group of young film directors graduated from a class heavily influenced by noted Hungarian director Sándor Simó. That year, Simó led the class to become the first generation of successful young filmmakers. Among these young upstarts was Ferenc Török, whose film “Moszkva Tér,” his first feature film, won Best First Film and the Audience Prize categories at the 32nd Hungarian Filmszemle. Not bad, one would think, for a kick-off to a shining film-directing career.

The key to Moszkva Tér’s success was its ability to reach a critical young and middle-aged audience ready to look back at the tumultuous recent history of Hungary. Taking place during the systemic, the film follows the last days of high school for a generation of youth. Carefree and bustling with a taste for adventure, the kids care more about their youthful adventures than the political events taking place around them, which remained a silent backdrop to youthful amorous adventures. Török was the first Hungarian filmmaker who made a feature film on the lives of youth in the early 90s, and the key authentications of the film were derived from his own experiences.

Second feature film

Now, after a several-year hiatus during which Török directed documentaries and commercials, his audiences can see his second feature, entitled: “Season.”

While the film has similarities to Moszkva Tér, there are many differences, and those waiting for light-hearted adventures reminiscent of Moszkva Tér will be disappointed. In both films, three rural young people try to bring success and excitement to their lives. Their existence is strongly determined by the subculture in which they live, but this time the film takes place in the present with the protagonists remaining distant from the more metropolitan Budapest of his last film.

The film tries to show the dead-end situation of youth who live near popular Hungarian tourist destination, Lake Balaton. The story line is not as strong as it should be. The protagonists decide to try their luck at a hotel where they make little money and run into a mixture of bored wives and pretty young girls on the prowl for sexual adventures. Halfway through the film, the audience, like the characters themselves, fall into a state of total boredom.

The dramaturgical twist

The characters become fed up with the little village, and the only chance to get drunk is at a small empty pub, after which the storyline becomes lacklustre. But the dramaturgical twist comes as the three youth decide to try their luck at the “big money” in the capital’s porno industry. The best twist of the film is that young film director Kornél Mundruczó, who in his own right is recognised as the most talented young Hungarian art film director, plays a porno director in Török’s film. As the film wraps up, the characters fail to succeed in porn and end up right where they started. Török has a point when he says we shouldn’t concentrate on the story - because neither the characters nor the story were interesting. According to the director, while a Hungarian audience gets lost in the story, conversely international critics or festivalgoers are able to decode the “visual signs.” Critics at the Locarno Film Festival - where Season received good feedback without winning any prizes – thought that the static nature of the film made it a tight composition, realistically showing the limited opportunities in the closed world in which the characters live.

The most valuable part of Török’s second feature is to see how he could illustrate the dead-end situation of youth living in rural Hungary with a sense of humour, veerin away from simply depressing his audience.

FILM Season
DIRECTOR Ferenc Török
YEAR 2004
DT RATING *****

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