Narcissus and Psyche
Psyché I-III. Hungarian drama, colour, 1980, by Gábor Bódy, Hungarian language, English subtitles, 261'
SCREENINGS
Directed by Gábor Bódy
Screenplay by Sándor Weöres, Vilmos Csaplár, Gábor Bódy
Director of photography: István Hildebrand
Music by László Vidovszky
Cast: Patricia Adriani, Udo Kier, György Cserhalmi, Ágnes Horváth, Éva Tóth, Dénes Újlaky, János Derzsi, Caven Ingrid, János Pilinszky Production: Hunnia Stúdió
Based on Sándor Weöres’s poem, this is a fantastic, visionary, mythical time travel, the “encyclopaedic debut film of the postmodern era”. Gábor Bódy refined the inventiveness of Weöres in connecting the love of Erzsébet Lónyay, Gypsy countess of the 18th century, and László Ungvárnémeti Tóth, an ill-fated playwright, with the story of baron Zedlitz, the dreamer. Behind this love triangle, Bódy unpacks the intellectual history of a century and a half, from the Enlightenment to the 1920s. The music of László Vidovszky transformed with electronic devices reinforced the timeless and reflective nature of the film, increasing and at the same time positioning in inverted commas the number of its strata.