Kontroll

KONTROLL begins with a representative from Budapest's subway system, self-consciously reading from a clipboard as he voices his belief that audiences will see the film's depiction of the subway and its denizens as allegorical, rather than literal. Additionally, he states that he was happy to have permitted the film's use of the subway, as the young writer & director, Nimrod Antal, was profoundly concerned with issues of good and evil.

I don't know if that guy is an actor or not, but what a great way to set up a movie. By announcing that it's an allegory about good and evil, the film distances us from an immediacy it might otherwise have. Why is this a good thing? Well, our rational side is willing to overlook a disjointed story, a lack of compelling characters, and the production's unremitting ugliness because it's on the lookout for allegories of good and evil. Rather than reflect that a particular sequence doesn't move the story along or provide any real insight into its participants, it's thinking, "What does this mean?"

Here's the setup: Bulscu (Sandor Csanyi) is the leader of an underdog squad of Kontrollers, ticket checkers on Budapest's honor-system subway. He's smart, attractive, likeable, and sleeps on the floors of deserted platforms in the middle of the night. He appears to have no real home, and he may be a schizophrenic killer. With a setup like that, you'd be right to expect a straight-up thriller. Antal takes his story in a different direction, however, using his premise to examine the lives of people who exist at the fringes of society. It's an interesting experiment, and the conceit gives the shoestring production a thematic justification for looking as scruffy as its characters.

Is it interesting? Yes. Does it make one forget about the passage of time? Yes. Is it good? I'm not sure. I'm still trying to figure out what it means.