Luke, you were right; the more I learn about Kontroll, the harder it is for me to talk about it. After seeing it a second time, I'm finding it harder to wrap my mind around it. The setting of Kontroll is a world that combines and crosses boundaries between reality and fantasy, and it is hard for any human being to just go ahead and accept the fact that this movie is a blur; not everything is real, but not everything is an imaginary impossibility. And rightfully so; we live in a world where we, for the most part, know what is possible and what is not, so giving that up and living in an ambiguous fucked up "reality" for 105 minutes isn't easy at first.
Maybe Kontroll is so hard to talk about because Nimrod Antal has exposed a side of us that we don't really like to think about: the darker side, the troubled side, the side that maybe pushes innocent people in front of trains. I like that Bulcsú can both be the killer and not be the killer. If he is, then that shows just what a negative environment or a negative situation can do to a humans; it can break them. If he isn't, then there's the hope we're looking for, that there's some good in all of us, even though there's some evil too. We all have this moral conflict. We just don't want to admit it because it makes us look "bad" or "vulnerable." Should I do the right thing or the thing that makes me happy and gives me catharsis? Should I look out for others or take my needs as the most important?
Bulcsú isn't your typical underdog hero. He is more like the ancient Greek definition of a tragic hero. He is flawed, seemingly doomed to an unavoidable fate, forced to suffer, and is faced with a serious decision. He is not entirely a tragic hero because he doesn't die in the end, but perhaps the bitter, evil part of him does when he finally ascends out of the metro and into the next phase of his life.
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This is a wonderful post, and not just because of what you say, more because of the way you say it. There is a casual elegance to the language here - you sound like a smart girl simply talking - which is as it should be.
ReplyDeleteYou're right to compare elements of Kontroll to Greek Tragedy - it does have that sort of element to it. There is a veneer of civilization layered over animals in both Kontroll and the Greek tragedies. And like a classical myth, or a play, there is a fantasy about it. In a fantasy things can be more than what they seem. There can be virgin births and flying horses and we buy it all, and Kontroll has all of that as well. Have you seen Up? If you try to explain Up's plot it really doesn't make sense and it falls apart - how the explorer can be over 100 years old, how he never looked in his wife's book, how the house can fly to South America. None of this is possible. But as a vehicle for ideas, for emotions, for deep wordless comment about what makes a person human, what drives us on, it works amazingly well - there is a logic to the illogic. Kontroll as well.
And then there is an element of Kontroll... Bulscu never looks for the killer, does he? He wanders - he knows of the killer, but he i looking for something else, and the killer finds him. There is a passivity about him as a hero - he wins by running away at the end, not fighting. Hmm... that changes the movie a lot, doesn't it?
Luke
Sure, he's passive about everything...about bleeding and hurting and sleeping in the metro and pursuing a girl and facing Gonzo..he does it all passively. I never thought about it like that...so if he wins by running away, essentially he is not a "hero" by modern standards...yet he still is because, even though running was the tactic, he defeated the killer regardless. So isn't that different from just "running away" from the problem all together, never knowing whether or not it was solved?
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