Hukkle

Self-evidently the work of a first time director determined to make his mark, Hukkle (pronounced 'Hook-lay'; it means 'hiccup') is a dialogue-free feature which seamlessly combines documentary and fictional footage to create an amusing/disturbing rural parable - a metaphysical cousin to The Ballad of Narayama. An elderly man with apparently incurable hiccups leaves his cottage in an idyllic village to sit by the road, watching life go by. But here 'life' means not only vignettes of other villagers going about their business, but close-ups of the district's fauna and flora (the insect life, the farm animals, the crops, the weeds), the whole thing orchestrated into what Pálfi calls 'a motion picture noise symphony'. What emerges is an account of the natural cycle of births and deaths - and a suggestion that the deaths of the village's elderly, infirm and unemployed may well be secretly 'assisted' by the women of the community. Brilliant sound design by Tamás Zányi consolidates a conceptual and technical tour de force.