It’s hard to believe, but David Fincher, the man behind brilliant thrillers like “Seven,” “Fight Club”, and “Alien 3″ is now the director of the most exciting romantic drama of our age. The genius master decided to spice up his cinematic resume with a surrealistic love story. Through the reversed life of his hero he is throwing us into a deep-deep pool of tears, and it’s up to us, if we sink down into the swamp of sorrow, float on the waves of laughter or cleanse ourselves with the painful and warm tears of love…

Travel with Benjamin…

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is curious indeed: the story starts in 1920’s after the World War as a little baby boy is born into the body of a nearly hundred year old Metushelah. His mother died while she was giving birth, and as his father, after seeing the baby with his all-wrinkled skin, decides to get rid of his own flesh and blood as soon as possible. After finding his new home with a family who knows exactly how is it to be different from all the others, we discover the secret: the strange little old boy is actually growing younger and younger as the years go by. The Forrest Gump-like storyline gives us the impression that we are all relatives, friends and mentors in this adventouros life. And although we feel we are a part of his path, we can never be as close to him as a little girl… woman… old lady, who has to go climb all the stairs of heavens and hell if she doesn’t want to give up on her loved one.

Anyone who saw the fantastic movie, “Babel” knows exactly how the chemistry works between Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Not just because she is pretty, tall and has an appearance of a queen, and he is charming and handsome as he has ever been, but also because both of them are shining with the glow of the classic Hollywood stars, and never seem superficial for a single second. Through three and a half-hour long movie, the actors and the creators are spoiling us with so many colors that the film never seems boring or heavy. Of course it helps a lot, that the movie is flawless also from a virtual point of view. The excellent work of the visual artists, designers and the entire crew is deserving every single technical Oscar which the film was nominated for. It also worth every minute what the make-up artists spent with applying the mask on Pitt, for turning him into Benjamin Button… it took five whole hours every single day.

The screenwriter Eric Roth based his story on a novel by Scott Fitzgerald, and even if the title is the same, the dramaturgy is as different as it can be. In the original story a sage was born old, with knowledge and wisdom, and later on he dies having forgotten everything, without even understanding how does it happen – he is just getting lost in the dark. Roth decided to introduce his own Benjamin as old man only in appearance, but with the mind of a newborn baby. This small twist entirely changes the character of the hero: it seems like Benjamin has nothing to loose and he is becoming younger, more handsome, and also wiser. But towards the end of the story, Roth decides to change his tune again, and now the little hero is suddenly loosing everything: his wisdom, his intelligence and most importantly his capability for being in love.

The plot ends in our days, as the Katrina hurricane destroys New-Orleans. The dramatic ending is not only spectacular but it works as an amazing metaphor: we usually deal with the acceptance of death in our own silent and personal way, trying to think about it as a natural part of life. But to loose our loved ones while we are still alive, can cause a real storm inside. A storm which in the end can be more devestating than the death itself…

Cleveland International Filmfestival’s major hit, Leo’s Room hits the cinemas in Hungary! The so-called-gay-movie is much more than a simple tongue-in peek into a single man’s private universe. It’s more like a key for ourselves…

My confessions on Leo…

Leo is a student whose wide eyes and curly hair project sensitive boyishness. He is vaguely aware that there’s something wrong with his relationship with beautiful Andrea. What’s worse, Leo’s mom is pressuring them to get married. Uncomfortable with Andrea’s requests for sex, Leo pretends he has to study. He goes to hide in the apartment he shares with a pothead who spends his days watching “Star Wars.” Away from everyone’s prying eyes, Leo searches online for friends. Timid and awkward at first, he invites one or two men to his room, only to have them leave when he says he just wants to talk. Then Leo stumbles into old girlfriend Caro, who has become listless and chronically depressed. As they grow closer, he finds that she, too, has a repressed secret. Leo’s visits to an understanding therapist, plus his new love for a candid man named Seba, help him begin to answer his questions about himself.

As the festival’s official site describes, the film explores the moments of unexpected connection that can lead to confession and acceptance. Love, loss, grief, guilt, desires, and fear are all more easily managed if we have the courage to face them.

You can catch the movie in Budapest…

…on the 21-22nd of May, in Művész cinema, at 20:30
23-24th of May, Puskin cinema, at 20:30
25-26th of May, Művész cinema, at 17:00
28th of May, Toldi cinema – ask for the details about the all day workshops and talkshows.

I have a new neighbor. More correctly: I am the new one, since she was here since 1900. Yesterday as I was walking the doggies on the beach, I looked up on the house next to ours, and I saw I sign: “The poet, Rachel Bluwstein lived and worked in this house…” As  got home I got myself into the grove… I mean Google, and I have to say: now I’m in love!

Hello, stranger…

Rachel  was born in northern Russia in 1890, and died in Tel Aviv in 1931 of tuberculosis, which she contracted while working in schools for refugee children during World War I in Russia. All her poetry was published under her first name only, sometimes spelled ‘Rachel’, sometimes ‘Ra’hel’.  Rachel immigrated to Palestine in 1909, during the period of Ottoman rule, and lived for nearly four years at an agricultural girls’ school on the shores of the Kinneret. In 1913 she traveled to France to study agronomy, and spent the war years in Russia. The poet returned to Palestine in 1919, to Kibbutz Degania, but soon left, as her illness prevented her from working with children, and made physical labor an impossibility as well. She lived out her last years in loneliness in a room in Tel Aviv, and was buried at the Kinneret.

Most of her poetry was published in her last years, her language is so simple and clear, her descriptions deep and emotional; her love poems emphasize pain, loneliness and longing, while the rest often treat the strong connection to the landscape, to biblical figures, to human fate and the puzzle of death. I’m so proud and happy that she is not lonely anymore… I’m her new neighbor.

“Spring and early morning –
do you remember that spring, that day? –
our garden at the foot of Mount Carmel,
facing the blue of the bay?

You are standing under an olive,
and I, like a bird on a spray,
am perched on the silvery tree-top.
We are cutting black branches away.

From below, your saw’s rhythmic buzzing
reaches me in my tree,
and I rain down from above you
aragments of poetry.

Remember that morning, that gladness?
They were – and disappeared,
like the short spring of our country,
the short spring of our years.”

Rachel Bluwstein – Our Garden