“It gets absorbed.”

“It finds a role in the body.”

Lines spoken by a pivotal character late in Gyorgy Pálfi’s Taxidermia, they could mean anything. A commentary on pre- and post-Soviet Hungarian individual and cultural identity or which filmic genres are stirred into this surreal mix.

Adapted from Hungarian short stories and owing directorial debts to Gilliam, Saura, Jeunet et al., but never derivative, Taxidermia is a stunning, darkly enjoyable absurdist treatise on family dysfunction and ambition. Graphic and not for the faint of heart but whimsical, satirical and even affectionate towards the characters presented, Pálfi gives us an alternate reality that could have been a collaboration between Samuel Beckett and Damien Hirst filtered through Emir Kusturica. But then isn’t all post-fall-of-the-wall Eastern Europe an alternate reality?

Taxidermia presents three men in three different eras, each more grotesque than the one before. It begins with Vendel, a browbeaten, sexually frustrated army orderly stationed in the hinterlands who sires an international competitive eating champion. Then there’s the story of Kalman, whose triumphs in sport eating and romance of Gizella, another competitive eater, prove his undoing. In the end he’s a corpulent shadow of what he once was, delusional and at odds with his own son, a rail-thin taxidermist named Lagos. In this the final chapter, and as happens with fathers and sons, their destinies intertwine.

The film moves through these generations at a brisk clip, yet slightness of character and narrative are never sacrificed. Much like a well-crafted short story, all the elements must come together in filtered, concentrated eloquence. Pálfi is an assured director whose camera work is more like a conjurer’s sleight of hand than a technician framing a scene and even the most disturbing sequences are never unfeeling and never voyeuristic for their own sake.

Again, this film isn’t for the faint of heart, but the most cutting, vital art never is. Leavened with humor and skill, it allows uncomfortable stories to be deservedly and richly told. – [DVD]

Comedy/Drama/Horror

Not Rated

DVD Release Date: 4/6/10

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