After The Day Before (Másnap) Movie Review:


A smartly dressed, middle - aged man hitches a ride into the middle of the countryside, a foreboding land where the wind howls and the air is thick with sandy dust. Armed with only a rusty bicycle and a briefcase, he heads off the nearest village in search of a crumbling farmhouse which he believes he has inherited.

During his search he gets meets some of the locals, who swing between helpful and downright nuts. There’s also the matter of a murdered girl that keeps popping up in conversations.

Welcome to Lynch world, (via a stop-off at Kronenberg) Hungary style.

Chronological time is no longer as we know it…like the Salvador Dali painting of the melting clock, everything is distorted and time slips back and forth, in and out of sequence. He visits places he thinks he’s never been to, but somehow the people seem to know his face. A cut vanishes then reappears on his hand.

Oh yes, it’s a brain tickler alright.

Flitting between a number of locations and encounters laced with cryptic clues, it’s not one for those who find it hard to follow jumping narrative. If you ‘got’ “Memento”, you can probably handle this level of bafflement. It’s actually like that movie, had it not been played backwards but literally dropped and put together again in no order at all.

This is definitely one for those who like solving puzzles as every scene is literally dripping with hidden information…mirrors, clouds, apples, good lord even trees just crying out to tell you their secrets. As for the rucksack with the sheep head in it... the whole thing is positively cerebral, and there’s nothing like a good old brain massage to sharpen up the senses.

An especially creepy cornfield shot from overhead provides one of the most gripping moments, mainly to do with the fact that corn is creepy anyway (just ask Stephen King and M.Night Shyamalan).
There are plenty of other beautifully scenes set up to behold too, wonderful skies and plains that seem to go on forever.

Every little discovery he makes on his journey signifies something. There are even more clues in the way the film is divided up into segments. This does not make the task of sifting through the information any easier, but is a good tactic for preventing things from becoming too surreal.
There’s a stillness about many of the scenes which belies later events, because things are really kicked up a notch in the last quarter. This is something of a reveal too, it gives you a conclusion but you’ll still have to work out how to get there. Heck, it might even justify a second viewing.
One criticism is that it does sag in the middle for around twenty minutes, mainly due to a few too many visits to the barmy villagers, but manages to pick up the pace again just in time.

This movie, and another festival offering “Kontroll” are both Hungarian features, and both are very innovative in style and content. This is a very memorable feature and manages to be intelligent and thought provoking without being overtly aloof, unlike some others (see “The Gift”).

If you love playing detective, (like a certain person reviewing this movie!) this will be right up your street.

Terresa Gaffney

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