Lovefilm

Last night we saw a Hungarian movie, Lovefilm (1970), by Istvan Szabo, who also made the terrific Meeting Venus. The main character of Lovefilm, Jancsi's, memories are mixed with the present -- sometimes there are extended scenes from his past, sometimes brief images. Some of the images are irrelevant to the story, just as memories can be random. But it's edited together so smoothly that the viewer is never confused about what's going on.

There's a beautiful scene where the main characters make love: the audio is of their love-making, but the visual is a scene of them as children, riding down a snowy hill on a sled together. The sounds and the visual are put together so well that at first you think it is the sledders who are sighing and laughing. It's a long, long slide down the hill, with the camera on their laughing faces, and it comes very slowly to a stop at the bottom.

There's a scene where Jancsi is sitting on the beach in France. He opens his eyes: the sea, and his lover, Kata, whom he is visiting. Closes his eyes: the grey buildings of J--- Street, in Budapest. There's a voice-over (which of course I read in English sub-titles), in which he says, approximately:

When I open my eyes now I see the sea, and Kata. I close my eyes, and I see J--- Street. In a few days, when I open my eyes I will see J--- Street, and when I close my eyes I will see the sea. That is what the sea and J--- Street have in common: they are both in my mind...