Dr. bobbyperu is here:) As I planned, on Saturday I accomplished my PhD public examination, which was - of course - excellent:) The defending party ended with a "problematic" night and total hangover after it, maybe that explains my choice: I thought watching a Hungarian pop-movie is a good idea - half of my brain must be enough for that...
Gábor Herendi's Lora is a very mediocre film. That would be ok this time, really, but the biggest problem is that it wants to be more, and maybe among the contemporary Hungarian blockbusters (haha) it is even not the worst try. Anyway, it seemed as a good choice: I wanted an easier than an easy joint after the academic discussion. I thought I need something completely simple, linear and chronological, since my doctoral thesis was about the film theory of the narrative and cognitive non-linearity, and I have to admit in the last time I became more and more sick after even a single innocent flashback... And then Herendi is coming, and doesn't care with my narrative wishes (not to mention my terrible hangover), and delivers a parallel-non-linear-flashbackish-plot.
So. what can I do, back to my topic and say like a robot: I believe that there are two reasons for the more and more trendy (and more and more complicated) non-linearity in films:
In a lucky case the non-linear form is in motivated relation with the story. Remember (!) Nolan's Memento? Following the inverse plot the viewer becomes as sick as Leonard, the protagonist with his anterograde amnesia. The same motivated relation is detectable in Attila Janisch well directed Másnap (After the Day Before) too, where we have some kind of unreliable narrator, and we see what he - suffering and struggling with his guilty feeling - wants to "show" for us from the "reality" as it "happened."
Another case when the tricky narrative syuzhet's non-linearity has nothing to do with the content. Usually there are weak stories behind these unmotivated narrative forms; what we see is like a compensation: the dim screenplay tries to come out of focus via the aestheticizing facade of the form.
I think you know already where Lora belongs to. And then I still didn't say anything about the terrible acting (the American actress as Lora is ok, but hey, this dubbing is so brutally amateur!), the wannabe hits as a soundtrack (they are more songs for advertisements than for films), the disgusting product placement (typical illness within the genre in contemporary Hungarian films), the artificial dramatic turns and situations (for example: after the concert the interposing organizer) ...
To see soberly 2/10, yesterday:
4/10
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