East of the West 2002 / Kísértések / Hungary 2002
A young man is determined to seek out his father and the answer to a question: What kind of life should I lead? Should he chose sensual pleasures, or become a thief breaking bank codes, or even a brilliant scientist? Should he perhaps remain single and live an aimless and carefree life? What all can happen when the archaic and the modern worlds collide?
Anna is a divorced accountant employed by a large bank. She alone is bringing up her son, a student in mathematics and computer programming. Marci is a talented and sensitive boy who everyone agrees has a great future ahead of him. But he is not interested in pursuing a career since he is obsessed with finding his father and his place in life. What path is he to take? Is he to let himself be indulged by his devoted mother who looks on jealously as he searches for his father and contemplates the important decisions he has to make in life? Should he allow himself to be seduced by his beautiful fellow-student Elvira who will show him the sensual pleasures of life? Is he to become a criminal, breaking into the bank de-coding system in order that he can live a dangerous but affluent existence? Or should he follow the example of his teacher and become a scientist locked away in the library? And what of the example set by his own father, an alcoholic with sterile talent who may have guarded his freedom but has nothing to show for it? Perhaps he will find solace in the pure and devoted love of a ten-year-old gipsy girl called Juli, endowed with mystical abilities who, after her father sells her to him, considers herself his property and his wife. Marci is unable to identify with this archaic role, and that proves to be a fatal mistake…. The ever thickening mixture of relationships, where everyone is seeking something, and at the same time escaping from others who look for something in them, is blown apart by Juli, the only person in the film who seeks nothing.
88 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Zoltán Kamondi
/ Screenplay Zoltán Kamondi
/ Dir. of Photography Gábor Medvigy
/ Music László Melis
/ Editor Zsuzsa Pósán
/ Producer György Budai
/ Production Nextreme Film Ltd.
/ Cast Marcell Miklós, Katalin Budai, Juli Básti, Zoltán Seress, János Derzsi, Julianna Kovács
Zoltán Kamondi (b. 1960, Budapest) studied both natural science and humanities at Budapest University, and in 1988 graduated in directing from the Academy of Theatre and Film. In 1989 he worked as a war correspondent for Japanese and French television and Radio Free Europe covering the Romanian Revolution. After making several short, experimental and documentary films, he shot his first dramatic work in 1990 under the title Paths of Death and Angels (Halátulak és angyalok – famed Czech actor Rudolf Hrušinský took a leading role). In 1992-98 he also directed theatre, founding his own experimental theatre group. In 1993-1999, in addition to numerous television and experimental works, he shot a nine-part series of films documenting various aspects of Hungarian life since the fall of Communism, The Hungarian Speckled Variety (Magyar tarka). His second feature, The Alchemist and the Virgin (Az alkimista és a szüp), was completed in 1999. He worked on his latest film, Temptations, for three years, making use of his experience in theatre, documentaries and experimental films.
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