Kút aka Well, by Attila Gigor

Kút aka Well, by Attila Gigor

Hungarian Films are often outstanding, spectacular, mesmerizing, memorable achievements- this year, the remarkable On body and Soul was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Film in a Foreign Language.

By the way, together with France, Hungary has the best results in that cherished, coveted category, in terms of selection, results – in the past, absolute masterpieces have originated from our neighbor:

Mephisto, Colonel Redl, both directed by the phenomenal Istvan Szabo, then there is Magyarok aka Hungarians, also nominated for the Oscar and finally, the winner for Best Foreign Motion Picture at the Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTAs and of the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes- The Son of Saul.

Kút is not in the same league with the aforementioned, but it is a well done drama, with some elements of horror, romance, perhaps there is even a hint of a psychological feature.

All the action takes place in or near a gas station, located in the middle of a field- though near a road- not far from the border, a crucial advantage for a group of criminals who take advantage of this position in their activity.

A gang of criminals are involved in trafficking people, sex workers as the politically correct address seems to be these days, from the poorer, Eastern part of Europe to the wealthier side, in this particular case, the women are going to work in Switzerland.

But before the party arrives, we have a reunion between father and son, the latter arrives at the station managed by the older man, tries to help arround and he is shown the old Bertha...which is an old Russian made Lada.

In the communist days, there used to be many jokes on the various dark sides of the lamentable life available for subjects of ther nomenklatura, including the lousy cars made in these Animal Farms, availble in spite fo their condition only to the „more equal of the animals: the pigs ruling the land”.

The butt of the jokes varied from country to country, acording to the national brand: Skoda, Dacia, Volga or Lada...

How do yuo double the price of a Skoda, Lada, etc?

Just fill the tank

Why do you have heating on the rear window of a Dacia, Volga, Lada?

To keep your hands warm when you push...

Bertha is abandoned in a garage, although we can anticipate and say that at a crucial moment, Marcsi aka the hero would perform a miracle and drive it, crushing his opponents in the process.

His father shares a secret and tells him that he expects a partner in crime, who would take a package from him, to smuggle across the border and make a handsome profit for the both of them, only the intial understanding would not functio this time.

Italian hunters come to the east to shoot illegally, poach birds which are protected in their country and the East- including Romania- abuse the fact that they have money to pay other criminals and sometimes offcials at the customs, hunting associations and others.

The package was made of such poor creatures, which should have been crossed and deliverd to Itlaian restaurants, only the power to the freezer had been cut and the dead birds are not not worth anything anymore and this attracts the Wrath of Khan.

When the associate arrives with the four sex workers that are on the way to Switzerland, the story is that the package is not here yet, in an attempt to buy some time and the group is staying for the night, since some cables from the van have been cut- the first version has rats responsible for it, but the truth is it was a human being.

The old attraction for the girl who has to sell her body, present in Pretty Woman, Manon Lescaut and other famous works, applies here too, though in a more realistic less rosy manner here and the danger of having to confront the „owner” of the girls adds to the tension.

A nadir is reached when the truth about the missing package is found and the crazy gangster kills the father of the hero, the latter takes out the Lada – that had not worked in deacdes- drives it to hit one of the accomplices and then over his parent’s killer.

Since this was not enough for a deadly revenge, he takes the still living body of the murderer, arranges it in such a way as to get the wheel of the car over him and rest on top until the haterd individual is dead.

Alas, the forces of the evil are coming, the mastermind and godfather of the operation arrives with other hatchet men, learns what happened and tries to do damage control, clean the place, eliminate the evidence, burry the dead and confront the peril to his „business”.

If some of this sounds familiar, the treatment is different, the outcomes are not the ususal happy end, with all or almost all the abhorent characters killed, the protagonist and his romantic partner fading in the sunset, indeed, at this very inetersting final chapter there are two possible endings and we will never know which one is „true” – the hero survives as one legend has it, or he does not, as a pessimistic perosnage belives...