Bibliothèque Pascal

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Movie
German title Bibliothèque Pascal
Original title Bibliothèque Pascal
Country of production Hungary
original language Hungarian , Romanian , English
Publishing year 2010
length 110 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Szabolcs Hajdu
script Szabolcs Hajdu
camera András Nagy
cut Péter Politzer
occupation

Bibliothèque Pascal is a Hungarian film drama by Szabolcs Hajdu from 2010. Within a sober, realistic framework, Hajdu makes use of the stylistic devices of the fantastic in both narrative and visual terms. The film is about forced prostitution and a system of male violence. Orsolya Török-Illyés , the director's wife, plays the leading role ; besides Hungary, several Romanian actors are also involved. Hajdu discovered the pimp's actor, Shamgar Amram , in London, where he entertained 300 onlookers on a unicycle. The film was shot in Budapest, in Constanța in Romania , in Wiener Neustadt and in Liverpool, England .

action

Mona has worked abroad for some time and left her little daughter to look after her aunt Rodica. Because Rodica used the child for jugglers' plays in front of an audience and gave him alcohol, the youth welfare office stepped in and took the child into care. In order to regain guardianship, Mona has to tell an officer how it came about and what she did abroad.

Mona was basking on the beach when suddenly a man buried in the sand was pointing a gun at her close by. Viorel, wanted by the police, keeps her there until late at night and then takes her to a shed. In a game of cat and mouse, they get closer and share a fantastic dream in which they wear splendid robes. The next day, Viorel is surrounded by a task force and dies on the run in a hail of bullets. Mona is pregnant by Viorel and gives birth to a daughter. She brings herself and the child through as a puppeteer and with odd jobs. Her father Gigi, who places prostitutes in Germany, urgently has to deliver a new woman under pressure from gangsters. He pretends that Mona has to travel to Germany for a medical operation and asks her to come with him. For these few days she leaves her daughter with Rodica, who works as a fortune teller. At a stop in Wiener Neustadt, Gigi sells Mona to two women traders. While one of them leads Mona away, the other shoots Gigi with a silenced pistol and takes the money back. Mona is bought by the pimp and stage artist Pascal at a human trafficking bazaar. He appears in the “Bibliothèque Pascal”, a bizarre luxury brothel in Liverpool, in which high-ranking personalities and greats of the entertainment business frequent. The women are held captive in lavishly equipped chambers and represent literary figures such as St. Johanna , Desdemona from Othello or Lolita . They are forced to recite dialogues from the respective work with the suitors before they rape them. Mona has to serve as Saint Joan for a customer. When Pascal tries to kiss her, she bites off his tongue, causing him to bleed to death. Meanwhile, Rodica is staging a play with Mona's daughter in Hungary, for which she collects entrance fees: the guests see the little girl's dream projected, in which Gigi leads a brass band. Mona now has to play Desdemona in a latex suit. Two customers threaten to suffocate her when Gigi appears with his band, and she can escape outside.

The officer makes it clear to Mona that she will not get her daughter back if his report contains such fairy tales. Resigned, she briefly tells that Viorel was only a casual acquaintance with fast sex and that she voluntarily accepted an offer to prostitute in Germany. The officer replaces “voluntary” with “forced”, lets them sign and leave. In his report for a commission he inserts the recommendation that the child be returned to the mother. Reunited with her daughter, Mona tells her a story. In this, the princes and princesses are locked in a chamber and are missing in the fairy tales that have become boring as a result.

style

In the first sequence Bibliothèque Pascal is told like a socially realistic film. In Mona's narrative that follows, a magical realism unfolds in the tradition of Federico Fellini , Emir Kusturica and Peter Greenaway . The director and his protagonist try out different forms. The film holds praise for storytelling and inventing, it is no coincidence that the main character is a professional storyteller. The narration enables Mona to survive, "[t] he flight into the imaginary allows her not to lose dignity." It is not possible for the audience to reliably distinguish "what is true and what is imaginative packaging of an unbearably ugly reality". The narrative is “less a fantastic version of what actually happened than Mona's only way of expressing what happened to her in words and pictures. She [...] also invents this alternative version of the life stolen from her in order to sublimate her traumatization. "

Reviews

Susanne Messmer spoke in the taz of the “intoxicatingly beautiful visual power” of the “disturbing” work. “Many viewers will leave this film full of indignation and disgust. That is always better than being concerned. ”Since you feel entertained in places, you feel caught. “That is unbearable.” The story forces the audience to “approach the film with great discomfort over long stretches.” Alexandra Seitz said in the Berliner Zeitung that “something magically colorful emerges from a bitter reality,” from sad cases more sexual Exploitation of “dazzling vignettes”. This approach brings out the horror of forced prostitution all the more clearly. Katja Nicodemus similarly stated in the time that the reality behind the stylization "still loses none of its horror." The film is "carried by a strange tension: between its actually serious subject and its playful, colorful images". Hajdu tell the story "with dreamlike eccentricity" and show "rooms that look like brightly colored dollhouses of the unconscious." Nicodemus described this library as "a place where culture is sold off and drawn into obscene".

Socially critical films that sound like the word “welfare officer” are lost compared to Bibliothèque Pascal , wrote Kerstin Decker in Der Tagesspiegel . The core of the film, Mona's encounter with Viorel, is "full of laconism, latent violence and poetry". A world in which everything becomes a commodity is losing its life, says the filmmaker, "and he's an artist enough to do it quietly." For Jessica Düster from the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , Orsolya Török-Illyés is a leading actress who " not only has a fascinating face and is superbly photographed, but also plays rousing. ”Although the plot disintegrates into individual parts, this weakness is easily forgiven“ this cinematic story, which is rich in wonders ”. In a short review, Der Spiegel found that the story "despite some enjoyable moments in parts seems quite strained and tough".

Performances and awards

Bibliothèque Pascal was shown in the International Forum of Young Films at the Berlinale 2010 . In addition, the production was the Hungarian application for a candidate for the Oscar for the best foreign language film in 2011.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Bibliothèque Pascal . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , May 2011 (PDF; test number: 127 141 K).
  2. ↑ a b Szabolcs Hajdu in conversation with Screen International, February 17, 2010: Szabolcs Hajdu, director and screenwriter, Bibliothèque Pascal
  3. ↑ a b Susanne Messmer: Desdemona in a single room . In: the daily newspaper , June 9, 2011, p. 17
  4. ↑ a b c Katja Nicodemus: The cinema dreams . In: Die Zeit , No. 24, June 9, 2011, p. 57; online , accessed November 12, 2014
  5. ↑ a b c d Alexandra Seitz: What a story! “Bibliothèque Pascal” offers magical realism . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 9, 2011
  6. ↑ a b c d Jessica Düster: Mona in the rogue country . In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , June 9, 2011
  7. ↑ a b c d Kerstin Decker: I see what you are dreaming now . In: Der Tagesspiegel , June 9, 2011, p. 27
  8. ↑ Der Spiegel , June 6, 2011, p. 107, unsigned short review: Kino in Brief