Taxidermia (György Pálfi, 2006)

[Toxicologist]

Just out of interest, is there a site with English interface whereby you could order Hungarian dvd's without too much problem?

I've yet to find one.

You mentioned that you were perhaps going to pick up the Hungarian dvd?...Would this be down to contacts you have Michael or through European travel etc?.....or are you able to somehow struggle through a non-english Hungarian website?

[MichaelB]

You mentioned that you were perhaps going to pick up the Hungarian dvd?...Would this be down to contacts you have Michael or through European travel etc?.....

A bit of both - one contact in particular, topped up with my own occasional trips to Budapest.

There was a discussion about online Hungarian DVD sources a while back, possibly in one of the Jancso threads, but I'm not sure if it produced any reliable leads.

[kaujot]

So, has there been any word on a R1 DVD? I see via IMDb that Tartan has US rights, but I haven't been able to find anything about their DVD plans if they any.

[miless]

woah, this was awesome. I'm pretty much speechless.

[MichaelB]

woah, this was awesome. I'm pretty much speechless.

I watched it on a timecoded DVD screener first time round, and rushed to see it on the big screen as soon as it opened, with a suitably broadminded friend. We got at least as much entertainment out of the audience reaction as we did out of the film!

[Cold Bishop]

woah, this was awesome. I'm pretty much speechless.

Suprised I only saw one walkout however.

[miless]

woah, this was awesome. I'm pretty much speechless.

Suprised I only saw one walkout however.

I was wondering how many walkouts there were. (fewer than You, The Living, which had four walkouts from my direct vicinity).

[zombeaner]

So, has there been any word on a R1 DVD? I see via IMDb that Tartan has US rights, but I haven't been able to find anything about their DVD plans if they any.

The release is not scheduled as far as I can tell. However, it is really cheap now! I just picked this up and Labyrinth of Passion from Sendit.com for about $28 USD shipped.

[Toxicologist]

I'm still waiting for the Hungarian DVD - the Hungarian Hukkle was head and shoulders above any other version (and light years ahead of the British edition), and was pretty much entirely bilingual as a welcome bonus.

I'm actually going to be paying a visit to Budapest in the very near future and 'Hukkle' is certainly a title i'd look to pick up whilst out there.
Just by way of interest in what way is the Hungarian edition better than say the UK Tartan version or French edition?...Video quality or supplemental material etc?
Anyway, i recently saw a post on another forum saying that the Hungarian 'Taxidermia' is a 2 disc edition with English subtitles so may pick that up too assuming it has been released.

[MichaelB]

Just by way of interest in what way is the Hungarian edition better than say the UK Tartan version or French edition?...Video quality or supplemental material etc?

It's vastly superior to the UK edition (Soda Pictures, not Tartan), which is slightly cut (for animal cruelty), has no extras and, worse, a Dolby 2.0 soundtrack - a pointless reduction given that this was apparently the first Hungarian film to be mixed in 5.1 surround from the outset.

The French disc appears to have the same transfer and DTS soundtrack as the Hungarian disc, but ditches the commentary (which, unusually, has English subtitles - in fact, the entire Hungarian disc is fully bilingual). There's been a bit of controversy about the Storaroesque 2:1 aspect ratio, but given the presence of the director and cinematographer on the commentary track, one assumes it's been officially sanctioned.

Meanwhile, the US version retains the extras (including the commentary) but ditches the DTS soundtrack.

So the bottom line is that if you want all the extras plus the DTS soundtrack in an edition that's 100% English-friendly, your only option is the Hungarian disc - which, happily, is also by far the cheapest.

[Toxicologist]

So the bottom line is that if you want all the extras plus the DTS soundtrack in an edition that's 100% English-friendly, your only option is the Hungarian disc - which, happily, is also by far the cheapest.

Many thanks for your comments and insight which have affirmed my intention on picking the disc up.
Without wanting to go too far off topic...are there any other English friendly releases which you perhaps think i ought to seek out?

Cheers.

[foggy eyes]

The UK disc of Taxidermia is from Tartan, and despite its shortcomings in terms of extras, does offer superb picture quality.

The film itself is totally barmy, and hugely entertaining in a grotesque/carnivalesque manner. I'm not quite sure that the whole thing amounts to more than the sum of its parts, but certain set-pieces are remarkable - such as the 360 degree tracking shot over and around the rusting bathtub, and Lajos's crowning achievement in the final segment. Robert Horton's article in the last issue of Film Comment did a good job of nailing its appeal.

[MichaelB]

Sorry to be picky, but the UK disc is definitely from Tartan (despite its shortcomings, it does offer superb picture quality).

Sorry, I thought Toxicologist was asking how the Hungarian Hukkle differed from the UK or French editions. I haven't seen a Hungarian edition of Taxidermia yet.

[skuhn8]

Sorry to be picky, but the UK disc is definitely from Tartan (despite its shortcomings, it does offer superb picture quality).

Sorry, I thought Toxicologist was asking how the Hungarian Hukkle differed from the UK or French editions. I haven't seen a Hungarian edition of Taxidermia yet.

Sadly, it hasn't been released here yet. Single and Double disc editions due here April 29 and will most definitely be Engish subbed.

[foggy eyes]

Sorry, I thought Toxicologist was asking how the Hungarian Hukkle differed from the UK or French editions. I haven't seen a Hungarian edition of Taxidermia yet.

Ah yes, I think he was - I skimmed, and thought you were referring to Taxidermia as coming from Soda rather than Tartan. Never mind!

[MichaelB]

Sadly, it hasn't been released here yet. Single and Double disc editions due here April 29 and will most definitely be Engish subbed.

Looks as though I was right to wait!

[MichaelB]

Looks as though I was right to wait!

I was indeed - the two-disc Hungarian edition is by far the best DVD version of Taxidermia out there.

In a nutshell:

DISC ONE
The film itself, in what looks like a state-of-the-art anamorphic transfer plus Dolby 2.0, Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks. Optional English subtitles on the feature, but (sadly) not either of the commentaries.

DISC TWO
42-minute production featurette (with optional English subtitles)
30 minutes of deleted scenes, with optional director's commentary (no subtitles)
8-minute visual design and concept gallery (doesn't need subtitles)
3-minute stills gallery (doesn't need subtitles)
Hungarian and International trailers (the latter with English subtitles)
Two music videos by the band Hollywoodoo (don't really need subtitles)
Taltosember vs Ikarus - 20-minute short film by György Pálfi, with commentary (film has English subs, commentary doesn't, plus 2.0, 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks)
Storyboards for the above (doesn't need subtitles)
A game, which seems to involve splattering cats

Oh, and the box is designed to resemble glistening slabs of meat, and my copy came shrinkwrapped into a white polystyrene tray.

[foggy eyes]

Oh, and the box is designed to resemble glistening slabs of meat, and my copy came shrinkwrapped into a white polystyrene tray.

Like this?



Courtesy of Bordwell's blog.

[MichaelB]

Same sort of thing, with a few superficial differences - the title label is smaller, and the meat looks much more like glistening labial folds, and I'm sure the effect was deliberate!

[kaujot]

Same sort of thing, with a few superficial differences - the title label is smaller, and the meat looks much more like glistening labial folds, and I'm sure the effect was deliberate!

Can we get a picture or two?

[skuhn8]

Looks as though I was right to wait!

I was indeed - the two-disc Hungarian edition is by far the best DVD version of Taxidermia out there.

In a nutshell:

DISC ONE
The film itself, in what looks like a state-of-the-art anamorphic transfer plus Dolby 2.0, Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks. Optional English subtitles on the feature, but (sadly) not either of the commentaries.

DISC TWO
42-minute production featurette (with optional English subtitles)
30 minutes of deleted scenes, with optional director's commentary (no subtitles)
8-minute visual design and concept gallery (doesn't need subtitles)
3-minute stills gallery (doesn't need subtitles)
Hungarian and International trailers (the latter with English subtitles)
Two music videos by the band Hollywoodoo (don't really need subtitles)
Taltosember vs Ikarus - 20-minute short film by György Pálfi, with commentary (film has English subs, commentary doesn't, plus 2.0, 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks)
Storyboards for the above (doesn't need subtitles)
A game, which seems to involve splattering cats

Oh, and the box is designed to resemble glistening slabs of meat, and my copy came shrinkwrapped into a white polystyrene tray.

If you have the patience to endure that stupid cat-splattering game and rack up enough points you are rewarded with yet another deleted scene (again, alas, without subtitles).

A note on Taltosember vs Ikarus: this was his contribution to the Jött egy busz... (2003) omnibus release. Thank god as I understand the other segments in that release were shit.

There's also a single disc edition available in Hungary. Different cover art and they dropped the DTS track and replaced with a trailer.

[Grimfarrow]

Same sort of thing, with a few superficial differences - the title label is smaller, and the meat looks much more like glistening labial folds, and I'm sure the effect was deliberate!

I hope the Hungarians credited the people who designed the damn thing in the first place. But I doubt it.

[Antoine Doinel]

A friend mine just forwarded an email she received from Amon Tobin's management team. It seems the cover of his soundtrack EP is too hot for Facebook:

the cover image for amon tobins latest ep. a score for the feature "taxidermia" depicts a scene from the movie in which a man shoots fire from his penis. despite countless facebook profile images which are genuinely designed to titillate using the female anatomy, a comedic image of a man performing an act that is not only not erotic but indeed not physically possible is what's ultimately deemed 'too hot for facebook'.

tobin's profile was deleted without warning and reinstatement to the online community has been flatly denied.

our apologies to all who consequently have also been denied access to this group. we would encourage any of you who might have opinions on the matter to be vocal and express your views both to facebook and to us. let us know your thoughts on amon's own forum where thankfully such censorship has yet to be deemed necessary. www.amontobin.com/foleyroom

view the image here: http://www.amontobin.com/upload/Albums/ ... _thumb.jpg

[kaujot]

I contacted Palisades Pictures about their stake in a R1 DVD release (since they acquired the Tartan library). They said they have no plans of releasing the film in the US and that the rights are currently being held by Fortissimo Films. I e-mailed them but have yet to hear a reply.

[MichaelB]

I've just filed my commentary for the upcoming Chasm Blu-ray edition.

A sneak preview:

You and I are basically sentient objects made of meat, bone, and gristle and lubricated internally and externally by various fluids, and we spend every single day of our lives ingesting and expelling various types of glistening organic matter, not as a weird hobby but as a question of basic survival.  And from adolescence onwards we also regularly expel the equally glistening organic material needed to create new sentient meat objects, whether voluntarily or involuntarily.

Of course, it’s his ignorance and inexperience talking, because we all know—or certainly should do—that vulvas are just as randomly and inconveniently messy, and because of this both sexes have a lot more in common than otherwise, and mutual recognition of this lies at the root of truly healthy relationships.

So, unsurprisingly, the prosthetic penis is about to make another appearance—there it is, and during rehearsals a tiny amount of bait was dangled in the vicinity to encourage what I gather was a very cooperative cockerel to perform on cue when they went for a take. Ouch. I first saw Taxidermia a few years before I started keeping chickens myself, but I can now confirm from painful experience that there’s a surprising amount of heft behind a chicken’s peck.

This dreamlike interlude seems doubly obscene today because just over a decade after Taxidermia premiered, one of the most disarmingly delightful films of the 21st century, Paddington 2, included a very similar scene of a pop-up book coming to life, albeit without the resulting depravity.  We’re now firmly in the realm of erotic fan fiction, and highly taboo fan fiction at that, as Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Match Girl is about to be asked for sexual favours.

Now, I’m married to a midwife, and she is constantly nit-picking birth scenes, with one of her biggest gripes being that babies in film and TV dramas hardly ever look convincingly newborn.  So I showed her this scene, expecting her to point and laugh as per usual, but instead she said "no, he really does look pretty newborn, but he’s massive; I’d say at least twelve pounds".  This was in fact the biggest baby in the maternity ward in the hospital in the nearby village of Csolnok, complete with a CGI pig’s tail, the easiest way of pulling off that effect since it involved absolutely no discomfort for the child.

Remember I said this part of the film was about the upper body rather than the lower body?  Well, here’s a very rare example of seduction by armpit sweat. Mmm, dreamy.

Now, I think by a whisker the most disgusting scene in Taxidermia was the earlier one in which the speed-eating champions burrowed into disconcertingly square blocks of jellied somethings, but this one’s giving me flashbacks to particularly unpleasant school dinners, especially when we reached the dessert stage and it would turn out to be something like semolina or blancmange saturated in custard: easy to mass-produce on a tight school-dinner budget, less easy to actually ingest with anything approximating pleasure.

This man here is drinking from what appears to be a lady’s shoe, which can mean many things, but in this context I suspect it’s closely related to it being seen as a traditional symbol of decadence.  Although initially associated with central European countries such as Prussia and Austro-Hungary, drinking from a shoe has since become particularly popular in Australia, whereby an entire can of beer is poured into a shoe and subsequently ingested in a ritual known as a “shoey”.  Come to think of it, an Australian remake of Taxidermia would be fascinating to watch.

However, if our now organ-stripped bodies are then preserved by a master taxidermist, surely that way we can achieve some kind of immortality without having to put up any longer with the gloppier aspects of human existence?  In fact, it doesn’t even need to be a master taxidermist; one of the more delightful phenomena that the internet has brought us over the last three decades or so is the notion of the crap taxidermy gallery, with some truly awful examples that nonetheless also bestow immortality on the animals in question, even if they might not have wished to have been frozen in quite such an undignified position.

And one of the film’s great lines is just coming up… there we go “I had a vomiting technique named after me!”  Well, that’s as good a claim for immortality as any—would we still remember, for instance, Thomas Crapper, Henry Heimlich or Moritz Kaposi if their names hadn’t been bestowed on, respectively, the flush toilet, a means of preventing choking, or a distinctive skin cancer associated with HIV?

He then received a letter from Her Majesty’s Inspector of Anatomy, which sounds like something from a Carry On film or a Monty Python sketch, but in fact it’s an entirely legitimate title for anyone officially charged with ensuring compliance with the 1984 Anatomy Act.

Although it’s not at all unknown for hanged men to become aroused, sometimes even to the point of ejaculation, for the same reason that some people are into erotic asphyxiation, I gather such a thing is impossible after beheading, because the decapitation process causes an immediate and catastrophic loss of blood pressure, making an erection physiologically impossible. Incidentally, if I get arrested after delivering this commentary and my recent Google search history is aired in court, they might as well throw away the key there and then.