And when did you last cry in a cinema?
No one can quite believe that I made it to Cineworld for a 9.30 showing this morning, as it seems everyone stayed in bed till midday. But it was my one chance to see the press screening of the only other Hungarian movie at this year’s festival and I couldn’t miss it. Neither could the four other people I shared the cinema with.
Kythéra is much more kitchen sink than Szabadság, Szerelem, seemingly concerned only with the dramatic question of whether Csilla will persuade her loveable slob of a boyfriend to shell out for her dream holiday on the Greek island of the same name. So far, so quotidian. But, as you’d expect with a Hungarian feature, there are hidden and not so hidden layers of symbolism at work (largely concerning a painting on the theme by Rococo artist, Watteau).
The grainy, lo-fi VT footage of everyday reality is contrasted beautifully with tantalisingly brief glimpses of Csilla’s fantasies, filmed in stunning, vivid colours you can almost lick right off the screen. There weren’t enough of them, but that was probably the point.
Then it was off to see And When Did You Last See Your Father?, David Nicholls’ adaptation of Blake Morrison’s misery memoir. It started off depressingly conservative in style, the whole thing coated in Barrington Pheloung’s sickly sweet score. But then something remarkable happened. As the film crosscut between Colin Firth in the present struggling to connect with his dying father (Jim Broadbent), and their history of conflict portrayed brilliantly by teenager Matthew Beard, it began to speak for not only every son who has ever struggled to connect with a father, but every child who has ever had to cope with a parent.
By the closing scenes and that stunning 360 degree embrace shot, I felt like I’d been kicked in the heart.
I have only ever cried once before in a cinema and that was for Ponette. I thought it would never happen again in my life. Well before the end I had tears streaming down my face, and Barrington Pheloung’s soaring music on the credits was drowned out by the chorus of sniffling all around the auditorium.
See this film (and take tissues).
