Lovefilm

A film about a man remembering his past across a train journey. Jancsi is travelling from Hungary to France. The journey is long, and while he sits on the train his childhood, his youth and Kata pass through his mind. He and Kata grew up on the same street. They were together through the war years, the years after, and up to the events of 1956. Kata left the country and is now in France. The method is not straightforward recollection. The narrative keeps breaking: an image opens another year, a sound connects to another scene, and the viewer assembles the order. Some scenes repeat and change slightly each time. The subject is a relationship between two people, but the real matter is the scattering of a generation: who stayed, who left, and what remains between them. András Bálint plays Jancsi and Judit Halász plays Kata. István Szabó directed; it is among the early films about his own generation. A strong example for anyone who likes European cinema and formal experiment built on memory. For a viewer expecting a straight narrative, the film changes time constantly and explains it nowhere.