Hukkle is a great movie. Nice sound, nice shots. I enjoyed watching this movie with only 2 others in a cinema :). So natural, so pure... Hungary outside the big cities!
We discussed a lot about what is the message of the movie. On the internet there are some philosophy-sites which will give you some insights about the movie. What do you think: Is there a message? Does it show a moral? ..
Well, what's the mystery? For me, it's easy:
!!!SPOILERS!!!
Women kill their husbands because they don't work! We see them playing some kind of bowling all the time (and their company becomes smaller and smaller). Also the bees - there's a lot of bees in the film. Working bees kill their "husbands" - drones.
Nothing too philosophic, but great film.
I don't pretend to understand everything, but what Podporuchik explains is pretty much what I figured.
I really enjoyed this movie. It's so deceptively simple, lulling you into thinking it's just a slice of life, isn't country living just so beautiful kind of movie. And then slowly, out of nowhere, the movie's true nature peers out from behind the trees (and wheat fields, pigs, wagon wheels . . . ;-)
For those who haven't seen Hukkle yet think of the movie like this: it's kind of a cross between The Village, Wild Kingdom, and Man with a Camera, but directed by Chris Marker's long lost half-brother.
******MAJOR SPOILERS******
A very direct clue to what is happening in the town occurs during the wedding reception near the end of the film. Read the subtitles to the lyrics being sung carefully (or, if you're Hungarian is good, listen carefully). I can't remember the exact lines, but the gist of the song is: wives should feed lazy husbands with something that will make them doze off (permanently), but wives should reward good, productive husbands with tasty, nourishing food.
With this in mind, most of the movie becomes quite clear. Those small bottles with the milky liquid and marked with an "x" at the bottom, are being sold by the old woman to the other women in the town. So a lot of the film is her going around making secret transactions.
I didn't make the connection with the bowling, so thanks for that tidbit!
And that one transition from the aerial shot of the town to the close up of the strip of film - that was amazing. (However, the transition from the guy eating to the xray was a little cheesy...)
I'd love to read what other clues people picked up. I'm sure there are tons of very subtle ones. I'm going to have to watch this again.
Yeah, I got the same thing. Took me and my mate half an hour of discussion to work out that's what it meant though.
If you notice, the woman who makes the poison has a bedridden husband. Could he be slowly poisoned? or is he the only man in the village who does not work has not been killed?
I was quite interested in the interaction between the female police officer (who gets married at the end) and the male police officer. They share a charged look in the police station. Has he deduced the nature of the glass bottles and sees she has one? Is there an attraction between them? He is also looking similarly brooding at the wedding, where she pours her husband a drink (an act I found rather sinister).
It is a very curious film, and one which I enjoyed very much. The montage of everyday village acts which could be taken meaningful independent actions, but viewed together added up into a colourful overview of village life, and of the interaction between the human and animal occupants of the village. And accomplished with very little dialogue at all.
Although seriously, that man hiccuping was REALLY annoying. Drink some water, you goddam idiot!
In fact that man hiccupping has just entered my top most annoying people in films. He's tied for top place with *beep* dobby the b*stard house-elf. If him, Dobby and Jar Jar Binks got together in a film, it would probably be so annoying, it would bring about the birth of the anti-christ.
I'm not exaggerating
I personally enjoyed the man with the hiccups. The Hungarian word for hiccup is Hukkle and it starts the pace of the movie as the town slowly comes into being through the rhythm of his hiccups.
shareThe old man was drinking only the milk cause he was sure it was pure and not "poisoned"! If you have just a small amount of liquid that you can trust every day to drink, you cant waste it for stopping the silly hiccuping! Thus he kept on!
I hated the sound too, but oh well, the message is clear, so in the end, I didn't mind it.
Great movie!
"Women kill their husbands because they don't work!"
Actually it really happened in Hungary (the most famous is Tiszazug if I want to be precise) around the turn of the century and the investigations started only in 1929. In this small village 162 people (95% of them grown up men) were poisoned by arsine. And the reasons were a bit more complicated than that.
There is a documentary about this story from 2005, by a dutch lady called Astrid Bussink (http://www.astridbussink.com/). The title is "A komp nem üzemel" (Angelmakers, http://angelmakers.nl/).
(It is a shame that even though it won some prizes at film festivals and docufests, it could not participate in the the Hungarian Film Festival in 2006. There are two possible reasons for that given by some members of the jury: according to one guy, it "simly did not meet the high standards of Hungarian documentary making and of the 37th Hungarian Film Festival". Another is said to claim that it was not Hungarian enough. No comment.)
Not all the men were killed for not working I think. The bee keeper specifically had another lover. (at least we see him kissing a woman that's not his wife). A lot of the movie points to the poisoning for not working or various other reasons. The thing I really want to know is what is that jet plane all about? I have no clue as to what that was doing in the film.
shareI enjoyed the crime scene before and after photo the male police officer notices with the half full bottle of liquid to the empty one.
I thought the jet was an easy device to get a sweep across the whole town, specifically to have a reason to go from each of the isolated places in the film where some 'story' is taking place in a way that conveniantly ties it together. I would have to watch it again, but i also thought it was the most pronounced contrast of rural life to the fact that this village is within a 'country' in all that entails, international relations, a government, an army a whole world of interaction out of the eye that imposes itself. Cars and so on are common, but i thought the jet was a whole different level of contrast.
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Good you see that, the bee keeper had an affair. The maker tell's us that with the camera, we are voyeurs. Looking from behind the brushes, if we are looking at something that is forbidden. The same with the shor of the old women filling bottle's after the pig *beep* shot. The men that are useless are killed, so not working, the sick or committing adultery. I'm writing an essay about the Metaforical line in the story. So people can mail me about it.
shareMy inital thoughts on watching this was that here was no real story or plot and it reminded me a bit of films like Bodysong or Naqoyqatsi.
But the n i got thinking about it and there is a plot - but cos so little time is spent on the murder and nothing is resolved the murder almost seems as an aside (total time spent on it 5 minutes?)
The more im reading about this film the more i think i want to see it again.
[deleted]
...but it's also a Murder Mystery!
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I think the movie was about the cycle of life in the small village. Think about the sequence where the fisherman's body is seen at the bottom of the lake. Next you see the frog, then it's eaten by the catfish, which in turn eats the baited hook and then is caught and taken by the fisherman to his family and eaten with his family looking on.
The murders that took place were about getting the resources from the person's death. Through the death, the wife gets the husband's social security that is delivered by the mailman. There's also another sequence where it is shown where someone (man or a woman I'm uncertain) was shown dead outside on the front porch. (the plate with the liquid and dead flies indicates to me that it was poison) The mail person needed to deliver their pension to them, but by the body language the black-shrouded old woman communicates that the person is sick and can't come to sign for the money. (they don't have checks in Hungary)
What is different about the beekeeper's death (and possibly the fisherman's death) is that it wasn't a "cycle of life" deaths, but quite possibly vengeance by the policeman's mother for her husband cheating on her with the dark-haired older woman who delivers him food earlier in the movie. This is revealed to the policeman where looking over his investigation of the fisherman's death just after he sees the pension delivery taking place with the old person outside on the porch. This is all confirmed by the policeman catches his mother emptying the barrel with the poisoned wine.
At the end of the movie, the instruction of the poisonings is told through the traditional singing during the wedding reception. Afterwards, the soloist sings about the dark, lonely valley where the bird rarely comes. That bird is the owl, and of course the owl represents knowledge and wisdom. The policeman is looking forlorn listening to this as he is weighing in his mind these killings go on in his sleepy village and furthermore that his mother killed his father and what to do next as an officer of the law. The owl is shown last in the darkness as rain falls and the picture narrows to a closeup of how the rain collects in the earth.
Absolute perfecktion in the face of woofing!
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
The story is based on the Angel Makers of Nagyrév. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Angel_Makers_of_Nagyrév.
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