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Joining Ssssss, Phfft, Crac and Eegah! in the select ranks of films with purely onomatopoeic titles, Hukkle is derived from a Hungarian rendition of the rhythmic, frog-like croaks that emerge from weatherbeaten old Uncle Cseklik's throat throughout the brief running time of György Pálfi's feature debut. A plausible English translation would be 'Hic!', which its French distributors have indeed opted for, though that suggests an altogether jollier affair than this bracingly pessimistic black comedy.

Seven years ago, Microcosmos presented a day in the life of a French meadow, paying particular attention to the various insect species that it allegedly housed. Hukkle takes a similar approach to the fictional village of Kesernyés ('Bitterville'), though on a much broader canvas. Insects there are aplenty, but also reptiles, birds, amphibians, sheep, horses, cats, dogs and humans, all regarded with the same detached, quizzical eye. There is no spoken dialogue (occasional snatches of conversation carry no more interpretative weight than the surrounding bleats, grunts, hiccups, snores, clanks and whirrs, stitched into a beguilingly polyrhythmic aural quilt by sound designer Tamás Zányi), and the only non-credits-related subtitles come at the very end, when two sequential folksongs attempt to explain the behaviour of the film's most lethal characters.

This inclusive approach to its characters makes Hukkle both disorientating and tantalisingly suggestive, and Pálfi exploits this confusion by resorting to numerous distracting asides, especially in the early part of the film. The most memorable of these is a porcine equivalent of Viz comic's Buster Gonad, whose swollen, screen-hogging cojones ensure that the black-clad figure quietly going about her business in the background might well be missed on an initial viewing. The shot of the pig, and its linked close-up of a bowling ball, emphasises the film's central thesis: the essential uselessness not just of men but of the non-species-specific male sex in general. The policeman aside, women perform virtually every useful task: delivering the post, harvesting corn, supervising sheep, sewing dresses, cooking and washing, with only the occasional moment to relax in front of Brazilian soap operas. Small wonder that the second wedding song is about loneliness.

The women's travails are intercut with and explicitly tied to images of nature, red not only in tooth and claw but also beak and mandible. Despite the obligatory disclaimer that no animals were harmed during production, violence and death are all-pervasive, with human fatalities given no greater emphasis than those of worms or ants (in many respects less, as they generally occur offscreen). Cross-species food chains abound: worm-mole-dog, frog-catfish-poacher or, not necessarily more benignly, corn-flour-stew-human (and cat), viewed for the most part in extreme, semi-abstract close-up, with occasional soaring God's-eye panoramas. Industrial processes show a similarly catholic approach, with horses, goats, sheep and bees given their own vital tasks.

Much of the natural history footage, which includes time-lapse plant studies, is as convincing as anything presented by David Attenborough, though there are also three prominent CGI effects: a Tex Averyesque camera pullback to reveal the physical film itself, dangling with other strips to form a pub's inventive alternative to a bead curtain doorway; a dissolve to an X-ray view of a victim eating his last meal; a shot of a fighter plane suddenly switching to ultra-slow motion as it passes. Although eye-catching coups de cinéma in their own right, these sequences are somewhat jarring in the context of the rest of Hukkle's scrupulously realistic staging. But it's an engaging and distinctive debut, boding well for Pálfi's forthcoming Taxidermia, whose title suggests a similar upending of the natural order of things.

Nothing wrote:According to Hukkle's producer, the filmmakers - students at Hungary's largest film-school and children of the privileged classes - arrived in the impoverished village without any prior research and 'filmed what they saw', with only a basic high concept in mind (this being 'Microcosmos in a Hungarian village with a secret murder twist'). Personally, I believe their approach to be inherently flawed, albeit a lucid insight into the mindset of the filmmakers in question.

As they go through the motions of playing with their 35mm toys, pulling off every pointless parlour trick they can imagine with studious zeal, the filmmakers' lack of insight and smug sense of superiority / contempt over the inhabitants of the village drips from every frame. Yes, the men sit around and the women work - a cliche that is never expanded or humanised (and I'm not counting the sillly, wish-fulfilling twist). And, yes, indeed, to a cocky young member of the Hungarian high society, a poor old man with hiccups probably is about as human as a reptile, a bird or a sheep...

Then there is the disdain that young Hungarian filmmakers in general seem to feel for their esteemed elders (and betters), ie. Jancso, Tarr, Makk. The Hollywood sensibility has firmly penetrated Hungary's film schools and filmmaking establishment. Honestly, though, Palfi could do far worse than to sit through Satantango a few dozen times... Who knows, perhaps he has done so and Taxidermia is the work of a penitent man.

skuhn8 wrote:Hukkle was a very bold and exciting experiment. Yes, the filmmakers come from a wealthier class than the village they shot in. So what? Is this the first time that a filmmaker with a budget filmed somebody without one? Do you check the family financial status of all the filmmakers whose films you view for discrepencies with the subject?

MichaelB wrote:there's another film from someone from a privileged background that paints a relentlessly negative picture of life in a milieu quite alien to his own.

skuhn8 wrote:Tarr and Jancso? No, very few people in Hungary have seen any films by either of these two.

Lino wrote:Taxidermia was given the Audience Award for Best Film yesterday at the Fantasporto Film Festival. At least our cinema-going public has good taste around here!

MichaelB wrote:It's riddled with spoilers (understandably), but those who don't care or who have seen the film already might enjoy the BBFC classification report. They gave it a plain vanilla 18 certificate with no cuts, but only a few years ago it might have run into real problems.

Michael wrote:Still debating whether to buy the DVD or not. I liked Hukkle and from the way Taxidermia appears to me, it looks quite a departure from Hukkle, am I correct?

What other films would you compare Taxidermia to?

MichaelB wrote: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.

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