This film could have been much more than it turns out to be in the end, somehow. I was very intrigued to see it, and I did not regret it, because the dark hyperrealistic and hyper-dreamlike atmosphere of melancholic and little bit deserted Budapest definitely doesn't disappoint. The idea is very interesting: a successful career woman, a neuro-surgeon, comes back to Budapest after twenty years, because of a man whom she believe to be a man of her life. However, he pretends they have never met before. So she stays in Budapest and moves her life back there in order to explore the whole thing, keeping seeing the guy who seems to be interested, though . The film is successfully keeping the attention of a viewer who is eager to see whether she made up the whole thing, or the guy seems to be disturbed in his mind. But in the end it turns out it is neither of these possibilities, but just the pure lie of the guy who got scared and chickened out from a woman who seemed to like him, so in the end he admits it.
The film cleverly makes two protagonists both neuro-surgeons, people who mess with human brains, and who know very well that the brain is not something firm and unquestionable, and it was very promissing plot in the movie. But the ending kind of erases this clever constellations and make them two ordinary people: the guy who tried to sell a typical insecure men's lie, and a woman patient enough to wait for him to admit it. It is just too banal, in the context of the whole atmosphere of unstable human mind situation. The whole situation of "pretending not to know somebody" is just too banal to be believable, and the second it was revealed, all the mystery about Janos, "the mysterious man" was totally killed, but in a bad way. This film promised much more than resolution in the style of "rom-com", but in the end, it delivers a disappointing ending. Pity. I believe the author simply wasn't brave enough to elevate the point to a higher level. Not that there are no interesting points and places to discuss in this movie, far from that, but it missed a great chance to be a true revelation.
6.5Plot summary
Márta, a forty-year-old neurosurgeon, falls in love. She leaves her shining American career behind and returns to Budapest to start a new life with the man. But the love of her life claims they have never met before.
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Good film, but failed ending
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (I think I made you up inside my head.)
- Sylvia Plath, Mad Girl's Love Song
Márta, an American neurosurgeon, is on a bridge in Budapest waiting for the love of her life to appear at the appointed time. She has given up her job, patients, kids, and husband to be with this man. He doesn't show.
"I've never seen you before," he says when Márta tracks him down at a local hospital (he is also a brain surgeon). Still, she doesn't let it go. Márta is Carrie Fisher in Blues Brothers level obsessed. She gets a job at his hospital and starts to woo him again. She is certain he will remember. Or perhaps it is all in her head. "A brain is like a city. There are abandoned buildings that can be sacrificed if need be, to save the whole."
Cerebral in more ways than one, this female driven film is an intriguing brain tickler. There are many possibilities as to what drove Márta to Hungary and where she is going from here. Her love interest is seen with another woman of course, so there's that, but thankfully the film goes much deeper than this tired old trope. It delves into Márta's mental state. She has done something like this before in a previous romance. "I wanted something so bad I lost myself" Márta tells her psychiatrist, and yet you don't get to be a brain surgeon without having a healthy intuition. She struggles to trust herself.
There are some amazing scenes including of Márta and the other doctor following each other across Budapest on different sides of the street. There are fascinating twists and turns.
The prettier you are, the more crazy behavior men will tolerate from you, so indulge yourself, go nuts.
Two deeply unstable weirdos get fixated on each other after a chance meeting. They do ridiculous things like move halfway across the world for someone whose phone number they don't even have, whom they've only met once. They stalk and tease, smile then snub, lure and reject, hide and seek, like two idiot children. I think it's intended to show a "different" kind of romance, for schizoid people, but it's just too unrealistic, the characters too dull. A "romance" like this would likely end in an eventual murder over some minor misunderstanding, because there is only so much one can "communicate" through creepy blank-eyed autistic stares. The female shows many signs of latent psychopathic tendencies & pre-menopausal psychosis. She goes ape when she sees the man with his daughter, perceiving the girl as a romantic rival; she casually toys with the affections of a third-party peripheral character, just to use him as cover while she stalks her chubby prey. The male lead should be terrified of this nut-job, not charmed by her. If she were a 5 instead of a 10, stalking a man like this, the film would be classified as a Horror movie. Luckily, as a 10, all her bizarre & alarming behavior is written off as merely "quirky", even romantic. There is no story here, so don't bother paying much attention. Put this on if you just want images on your screen; but if you just want images on your screen, you can just watch a documentary or aerial tour of Budapest, which is lovely.