Directed by Pál Zolnay
82 minutes
In Hungarian with English subtitles

In some circles this obscure Hungarian film has been compared to Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow up... that's because it is about the act of taking photographs. But where Antonioni's film maps the attempt to photograph the modernity of the hip 60s, this Hungarian crew goes backward to photograph the villagers living deep in the countryside, some of whom have never even been photographed in their lives. In the end, this film questions our entire process of 'imaging' ourselves.

Lingering somewhere between a documentary and a feature film, it examines with a critical eye how we relate to photographs in general—something profoundly needed in our present world of selfies and the flood of images that bombard even our private lives. All these images surround and influence us, but we barely understand them... and this rare movie helps us to take the first few steps in doing that. The cinematography of the film itself is incredible, in that old crafted sort of way, when b&w photography in the East Bloc was still an art form. A few of the images are enough to blow you away, and shatter all your expectations of a documentary. 

What I love most about this film, besides its poetic quality, are some of the villagers who reject photography outright, and even hate it. No way they will allow themselves to be captured and framed. Also, we see other people who don't know how to behave in front of a camera… you can see their eyes are more detached and calm—which is incredibly refreshing in our present Instagramed world where everybody knows how to 'act' when their picture is taken. In this movie the act of taking a photograph is rare and almost holy. 

The soundtrack to the film is a quiet masterpiece, made by one of the photographers who strums his acoustic guitar loosely as they walk through the landscape, knocking out lyrics about life and death off the top of his head. It gives the entire movie a sharp bittersweet tone.

Adventurous, lucid, poignant, lyrical, thought-provoking, piercing, philosophical. Haunting images of a time we have forgotten… images that we need to dig up again in order to remember what we have lost. An obscure gem of Hungarian cinema with a thick post-60s Eastern Bloc mood.