Másnap (2004) User Reviews

Heavy on the weird - is it all really worth it?

[Chris_Docker · 6/10 · 22 August 2004]

A man wanders through an almost dystopian landscape, trying to find an old farmhouse he has inherited. The people he meets are a bit strange – some ask him to kill someone for them, or try to seduce him, or get him to drink alcohol or just act plain damn weird. But there again, he's pretty weird himself.

This experiment in non-linear storytelling maybe has elements I couldn't figure. Every time I thought I might have a handle on it, the meaning eluded me. It's told in four chapters - The Sky, The Dust, The Wind, The Road. In the packed UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, two people fell asleep within yards of me well before the third chapter. This is admittedly two hours of experimental film making that might be viewed as fairly soporific. The actors utter occasional lines with long silences between, as if each phrase had some deep significance. The gestures and movements follow the same pattern. The denouement partly explains, at least in the sense of a who-dunnit – but fails to fit the pieces together in a logical pattern as far as I could see. The setting is a rural, run-down area of Hungary. The film looks as if it was shot on a nominal budget. As a psychological essay it is perhaps more satisfying – as with early Lynch, the experience is not about having a simple straightforward plot with all the pieces explained and ends tied up with a ribbon. Where the film fails is that it is less interesting that early Lynch. The long pauses verge on being pretentious: but for those who like an enigma (solvable or not), After the Day Before has all the ingredients to allow you to stay up asking each other, so what do you think *that* was about??

*SPOILERS* suspenseful, surreal

[jon-370 · 7/10 · 5 June 2005]

I saw this @ SIFF - right after his film 'The Long Twilight' which honestly I preferred. The main actor here reminded me quite a bit of John Lithgow. The disturbing climactic scene was equal parts murder scene from the end of 'Twin Peaks:Fire Walk With Me' and ape-murder-with-bone scene from 2001. I had just seen 'November' a few days before. I was struck with similarities to this film - several short segments each preceded by a still card with a short name. In November we had 'Denial', 'Acceptance' ... here we had 'The Sky', 'The Dirt' ... In both November and this film we have an ambiguous mixture of events preceding along a general time line and the same events be relived but slightly differently. Both November & this film were created in 2004, with November "being written in 2 weeks" - perhaps enough time for this film to be the basis for November (which of course has a much thicker veneer of Lynchian visual & sound effects).

amazing

[lotuseeter · 10/10 · 4 June 2005]

I saw this film at the Seattle International Film Festival. The director was in attendance and provided much insight on the deeper themes of the film. It is based on a true story.

He said he tried to make it like real life, as you are going along the little fragments or events may not seem very important, but when you get to the end and look back then you see their impact.

He also said that the landscape was the most important character in the film. The film was divided into chapters; The Sky, The Dust, The Wind and The Road. To me these reflected the elements of the painting that the camera repeatedly lingered on during the film.

Yes, it is depressing. But I think there is more. This film is about evil and the way it grows. The nameless man starts off as an innocent bystander. Picking up bits and pieces of the characters conversations he starts to form an opinion about a girl he has never met. In the scene where he inspects her room, you can almost see the hatred growing within him. Hatred for some vile woman who only exists in his head. By the end it completely consumes him and he stalks her through the grass (in a hauntingly beautiful overhead shot), then rapes and kills her.

The director said it's about sin. It is about social responsibility. Was it partly the villager's fault that this man killed the girl? So often we think our words have no effect, it is only a little comment, I am not going out and murdering anyone, but these can have bigger consequences than we may think.

Films that should be seen by the outside world but won't be

[Camoo · 10/10 · 20 April 2014]

I saw this film years ago and it really stuck with me. Long, brooding shots, cinematography that evokes Tarkovsky, deserted landscapes and intense characterization. So many films from this part of the world that have never been seen by most people - it brings to mind another Hungarian film 'Time Stands Still', a masterpiece which remains in obscurity today. Masnap I somehow acquired on a busted old VHS tape, and have watched the film repeatedly in that format. It has proved difficult to acquire a better copy.

I've seen two of Attila Janisch's films, and found they both contained a strong, clear vision and a haunting tone. I hope to see more.

'The Voyeur'

[iillilllillii · 10/10 · 2 November 2007]

Strange and mixed responses. At no point in this film did I feel dislocated from the plot, even the time-line was within a somewhat tenuous reach but at all times I was certain where and how this story would conclude. I may have had an unfair advantage in reading a novel called 'the Voyeur' by Alain Robbe- Grillet, it won the Prix Des Critiques (the novel not the film). It came as a surprise to see no mention at all of this book in relation to the film, some changes in the story have been made, but certainly not enough to completely liberate it from what was obviously the inspiration. I can only imagine with much remorse at having some knowledge of the story how intriguing a movie this would be for a virgin audience.

I won't spoil the film nor the book by trying to explain the plot, but more to the point just say that this is one hell of an interpretation. Excellent even.

So much promise... Avoid!

[phillamg · 3/10 · 22 August 2004]

In short avoid this film.

Before watching this film the director told the audience that it may not make sense as we watched it (as time is not sequential and the lead character has memory problems) but by the final scene it would all reveal itself to us.

*** Slight Spolier but very important ***

He lied. The direction and the changing time points without of knowledge kept us interested and we needed to know how it all knits together but the ending was so weak with no explanation of why the character(s) were motivated to do it. Very disappointed.

I call it art when it makes me think

[taivostimmer-1 · 10/10 · 25 September 2008]

When you like Mulholland Dr. or 2001:Space Odyssey, then this movie is for you. When you like U.S. trash comedies don't watch it. Yes, it is a movie hard to watch. Even the critics have told that this movie is too complicated, but I'm sure that Attila Janich had a purpose to create it that way. I've heard that to truly understand the movie you have to detect very little details. I couldn't detect them myself, but this was not a problem. When the film ends, then you'll see, that the whole is what makes it masterpiece- cinematography, editing and the music. So if you are home alone and you have the Masnap DVD, don't hesitate, just watch it.

Seems to be a Bad Dream - but it is a Bad Film

[seressandor · 5/10 · 15 November 2004]

Poor Andrei Tarkovski....

The story is about a middle-aged man, probably a photographer from a big city, who arrives to a lone countryside, into a world of the struggling small farms, where the locals are poor_loser_caricatures, who are not_so_helpful, primitive, but sometimes secretive and almost always rude for the stranger and play disgusting and violent games among them. Our man arrives to a land, when the time seems to be frozen and the opportunity of the return (escape maybe) is offered very soon to him, even before the opening titles run down. The suspense starts, but will fade away to nowhere with the sympathy of the audience.

The chopped and mixed episodes are repeated with small alterations, and big confusion (see Pulp Fiction or Mulholland Drive), but the movie runs with a very slow pace and focusing a lot on the treasures of the nature (tiny hills, gentle slopes, leafy trees, a beautiful and mysterious creek) and sleazy, dirty indoors with worn-out countrymen waiting for the hopeless redemption (see Stalker).

The movie 'Másnap' is a missed opportunity for a good and tasty film. The outdoor shots are delightful for the fans of the original and perfect cinematography, but the indoors are dull and sometimes even stupid. The feeling of a timeless, unforgiving world with multiple spaces and times for one act is defined deliberately and on a fine way, but for nothing as the following episodes are dull and annoying.

The film borrows some pictures from Tarkovski (Solaris, Stalker), Kurosawa (Rashomon), Hitchcock basics and even from Kobayashi's Kwaidan, but there is no connection, no purpose for them.

The scene follows the murder, when the stone is thrown to the creek and we see the water to flow and the water-plants bending, is a direct copy from Andrei Tarkovski and is very painful near to the end of the struggling and tiring, time-wasting film. The world of Másnap has nothing common with the great Tarkovski movies, and no real connection to Hitchcock or Kurosawa...

The script is divided for parts as 'The Sky', 'The Dust', 'The Wind' and 'The Road' but it makes no difference: it is a flop with a lot of stolen motifs from the classics with no real dialog, no real story, no coherence.

The slow pace, strange faces and dialogs are just like in a bad dream, but a dream is not as long as this disaster.

So the result is about 50 % - it should have been completed, mainly with the scissors...