On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.
Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.
The Pitch: It’s January! Go Gut Yourself
Greetings and welcome to this, The Month That Sucks.
It’s a shame so many of us turn the start of a new year into an excuse to eviscerate our sense of selves and assume so-called “goals” as our burdensome, boring hobbies first thing post-holiday. And yet, countless self-flagellators like myself buy into the idea of annual resolutions. In an effort to evolve and achieve, be it through a Dry January or some broader personal mission pursued throughout the year, we choose to be...
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.
Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.
The Pitch: It’s January! Go Gut Yourself
Greetings and welcome to this, The Month That Sucks.
It’s a shame so many of us turn the start of a new year into an excuse to eviscerate our sense of selves and assume so-called “goals” as our burdensome, boring hobbies first thing post-holiday. And yet, countless self-flagellators like myself buy into the idea of annual resolutions. In an effort to evolve and achieve, be it through a Dry January or some broader personal mission pursued throughout the year, we choose to be...
- 1/6/2024
- by Alison Foreman and Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
If Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, and David Cronenberg (with Stephen King watching from the shadows) cinematically ejaculated into some film cans then Taxidermia might well be the result of that mixture. If the image of those esteemed directors doing that makes you feel a bit queasy then you might want to consider skipping Taxidermia as well. Morosgovanyi Vendel (Csaba Czene) is a lowly private with a harelip in the Hungarian military that is treated like a slave by his commanding officer, Lt. Kalman (Mate Gabor). He lives in an unheated shack next to the outhouses. Vendel escapes into his fantasies, which mostly feature the lieutenant.s daughters and wife. Did I mention that Vendel can shoot fire out of...
- 4/24/2010
- by Jeff Swindoll
- Monsters and Critics
The subset of cinephiles who like their movies in the “I dare you to watch this” mold will likely make a quick cult item out of Taxidermia, which is easily one of the most disgusting movies ever made. György Pálfi’s dark comedy is full of sexual perversity, vomiting, and vivisection, all in service of one of those “humans are naught but meat and want” meditations that’s compelling on the surface, if perhaps philosophically empty. A triptych film spanning three generations, Taxidermia begins as the story of Csaba Czene, a soldier so sexually frustrated that he inserts ...
- 8/20/2009
- avclub.com
We have the trailer as well as images in from Here Media and Regent Releasing's "Taxidermia" (a.k.a. "Taxidermie") directed by by György Pálfi. The film sees release on August 14th, 2009. The film stars Csaba Czene, Gergely Trocsanyi, Adél Stanczel, Piroska Molnar and Marc Bischoff. Pálfi also writes alongside Zsofia Ruttkay based on the short stories written by Lajos Parti Nagy. Taxidermia contains three generational stories, about a grandfather, a father, and a son, linked together by recurring motifs. The dim grandfather, an orderly during World War Two, lives in his bizarre fantasies; he desires love. The huge father seeks success as a top athlete - a speed eater - in the post-war pro-Soviet era.
- 7/10/2009
- Upcoming-Movies.com
CANNES -- Cannes cineastes will conjure up recollections of early Bunuel and Wertmuller: Bloodied slabs of meat and huge flabs of female buttocks. Such is the visual poetry of this pungently graphic assault on the viewing senses in Taxidermia, which is likely to be viewed in its bloody entirety by only thoracic surgeons and maniacs.
As such, those who reveled in such cinematic synapses as the eyeball being slit in Un Chien Andalou will gravitate toward this outrageous, and frequently hilarious, piece de film. Similarly, those whose delectations run toward defecation will be perversely tantalized its aberrant abstractions. It will be hardly anyone's cup of tea, but for those with a cinematic stomach for huge bowls of vomit and innards, Taxidermia should sate the aesthetic appetite.
Assuredly, the MPAA would rate this one NC-17 for nearly each and every second and, accordingly, it might win some rebellious appreciation as a Midnight Madness.
To spare our gentle and highly-desirable reading demographic from the tawdry minutiae of the plot (such that it is), suffice it to say that Taxidermia bursts along via a series of bodily functions: rutting, vomiting, slogging, farting, copulating and every other "ing" too impolitic to print. After a while, you tend to get the feeling that filmmaker Gyorgy Palfi views mankind with the same level of regard he holds for barnyard animals.
Indeed, the two sometimes intersect: In one remarkable scene, an avid military masturbator (Csaba Czene) finds a tantalizing hole in a barn wall, layers the opening with burlap and moistens it with spittle. He then begins his eager thrusts; on the other side, the barnyard rooster spots the heaving appendage and begins to peck away. Hereafter, the participants will be referred to as the "pecker" and the "peckee."
Get the picture? If you do, stay far away.
Yet, in its crudity there are brainy bursts. With a Brazil-like midsection that lampoons the brutish culture of the former Communist bloc, Taxidermia churns with some delicious dollops of social and psychological satire. There's some shrewed Monty-Pythonish satire, with scads of mordantly nutty images.
It's also lubed with scads of absurd, Dusan Makavejan-type comedy, including a screwy subplot involving eating champions from the Bulgarian Liberation Front. To boot, there's a dose of romance between two of the biggest Commie gobblers ( Gergo Trocsanyi, Adel Stanczel). The big couple's frisky frolics at a beachside resort are a delirious lampoon of perfume and jewelry commercials.
Rotund romps aside, even those who have special capacities for non-redeeming grossness, such as film critics, will be likely sickened by some of Taxidermia's excremental excesses. Narratively, screenwriter Zsofia Ruttkay seems to have shot his thematic wad just past midsection, as the barn-yarn oozes downward into a bloated and juvenile heap.
For a film so pessimistic about mankind, Taxidermia erupts with some light-hearted technical inspiration: Cinematographer Gergely Poharnok's compositions are wickedly hilarious, while production designer Adrien Asztalos' concoctions are peculiarly gross.
Taxidermia
Fortissimofilms
Eurofilm Studio
Amdur Fou, Memento Films and La Cinefacture
In co-production with Arte France Cinema
Director: Gyorgy Palfi; Screenwriter: Zsofia Ruttkay, Gyorgy Palfi; based on the short stories of Lajos Parti Nagy; Producers: Gabor Varadi, Peter Miskotczi, Alehander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu, Gabriele Kranzelbinder, Alexandre Mallet-Guy, Emilie Georges; Cinematographer: Gergely Poharnok; Production designer: Adrien Asztalos; Costume designer: Julia Patkos; Editor: Reke Lemhenyi; Music: Amon Tobin. Cast. Vendel Morosgovanyi: Csaba Czene; Kalman Balatony: Gergo Trocsanyi; Lajos Balatony: Marc Bischoff; Gizella Acsel: Adel Stanczel.
No MPAA Rating, running time 90 minutes.
As such, those who reveled in such cinematic synapses as the eyeball being slit in Un Chien Andalou will gravitate toward this outrageous, and frequently hilarious, piece de film. Similarly, those whose delectations run toward defecation will be perversely tantalized its aberrant abstractions. It will be hardly anyone's cup of tea, but for those with a cinematic stomach for huge bowls of vomit and innards, Taxidermia should sate the aesthetic appetite.
Assuredly, the MPAA would rate this one NC-17 for nearly each and every second and, accordingly, it might win some rebellious appreciation as a Midnight Madness.
To spare our gentle and highly-desirable reading demographic from the tawdry minutiae of the plot (such that it is), suffice it to say that Taxidermia bursts along via a series of bodily functions: rutting, vomiting, slogging, farting, copulating and every other "ing" too impolitic to print. After a while, you tend to get the feeling that filmmaker Gyorgy Palfi views mankind with the same level of regard he holds for barnyard animals.
Indeed, the two sometimes intersect: In one remarkable scene, an avid military masturbator (Csaba Czene) finds a tantalizing hole in a barn wall, layers the opening with burlap and moistens it with spittle. He then begins his eager thrusts; on the other side, the barnyard rooster spots the heaving appendage and begins to peck away. Hereafter, the participants will be referred to as the "pecker" and the "peckee."
Get the picture? If you do, stay far away.
Yet, in its crudity there are brainy bursts. With a Brazil-like midsection that lampoons the brutish culture of the former Communist bloc, Taxidermia churns with some delicious dollops of social and psychological satire. There's some shrewed Monty-Pythonish satire, with scads of mordantly nutty images.
It's also lubed with scads of absurd, Dusan Makavejan-type comedy, including a screwy subplot involving eating champions from the Bulgarian Liberation Front. To boot, there's a dose of romance between two of the biggest Commie gobblers ( Gergo Trocsanyi, Adel Stanczel). The big couple's frisky frolics at a beachside resort are a delirious lampoon of perfume and jewelry commercials.
Rotund romps aside, even those who have special capacities for non-redeeming grossness, such as film critics, will be likely sickened by some of Taxidermia's excremental excesses. Narratively, screenwriter Zsofia Ruttkay seems to have shot his thematic wad just past midsection, as the barn-yarn oozes downward into a bloated and juvenile heap.
For a film so pessimistic about mankind, Taxidermia erupts with some light-hearted technical inspiration: Cinematographer Gergely Poharnok's compositions are wickedly hilarious, while production designer Adrien Asztalos' concoctions are peculiarly gross.
Taxidermia
Fortissimofilms
Eurofilm Studio
Amdur Fou, Memento Films and La Cinefacture
In co-production with Arte France Cinema
Director: Gyorgy Palfi; Screenwriter: Zsofia Ruttkay, Gyorgy Palfi; based on the short stories of Lajos Parti Nagy; Producers: Gabor Varadi, Peter Miskotczi, Alehander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu, Gabriele Kranzelbinder, Alexandre Mallet-Guy, Emilie Georges; Cinematographer: Gergely Poharnok; Production designer: Adrien Asztalos; Costume designer: Julia Patkos; Editor: Reke Lemhenyi; Music: Amon Tobin. Cast. Vendel Morosgovanyi: Csaba Czene; Kalman Balatony: Gergo Trocsanyi; Lajos Balatony: Marc Bischoff; Gizella Acsel: Adel Stanczel.
No MPAA Rating, running time 90 minutes.
- 5/20/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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