Cinema might be guilty of creating many of the cliches of romance, but, occasionally at least, it also destroys them. And this year brings two particularly strong examples of the latter. On Body and Soul, the Berlin Golden Bear-winning account of two outcasts who find love in a Hungarian abattoir, might not have the showy impact of Guillermo Del Toro’s forthcoming The Shape of Water (mute cleaner hooks up with fish monster) but the pictures share two things. Both combine the fantastic and idiosyncratic to beguiling effect; both rewrite the rules that govern who is deemed worthy of love in the movies.
The two main characters in On Body and Soul are Endre (Géza Morcsányi), the reserved manager of a slaughterhouse who hides his emotions along with his useless left arm, and Maria (Alexandra Borbély), the new quality-control manager at the plant. It’s never explained, but Maria seems to be on the autistic spectrum. She struggles with the banal to-and-fro of social interaction and recoils from physical contact. But at night, she and Endre share the same dreams – a mystical but matter-of-fact connection that transforms both into deer in a sparkling winter woodland.
The film gets much of its considerable impact from director Ildikó Enyedi’s elegant juxtapositions. The obscene, intimate details of animal butchery against the delicate suspense of the dream sequences; the lovely crystalline score that sounds like melting icicles against the brutal sound design in the abattoir; the palette of frosted pastels for day, which warms to something more sensual and inviting at night. It’s an exquisitely offbeat love story and I fell headlong for its angular, awkward charm.
