On Body and Soul (Teströl és lélekröl)

Hungarian writer and director Ildikó Enyedi’s film about a couple of outsiders has a cool, glacial elegance that doesn’t detract from what is fundamentally a weirdly good-natured story that deals with loneliness, dreams and love.

However, it opens in anything but a warm and cuddly manner as she contrasts idyllic woodland scenes with the viscera of slaughtered livestock. Maria (Alexandra Borbléy) is a newbie employed by a slaughterhouse to check the classification of carcases. She’s shy and low-key but soon gets noticed by her colleagues for her attention to detail and by Endre (Géza Morcsányi) the general manager, who takes a fancy to her.

Both are relatively introverted though with Maria there’s a suspicion of Asperger’s with the way she places her feet, how she lays out her food on the plate and her eidetic memory.

Endre clumsily tries to befriend Maria, unsuccessfully though he persists. Maria warms to him and they find that they are having the same dream; Maria of a doe and he of a stag. This plays out comically when both are questioned about a theft at the plant, winding up the investigating officer no end. They call each other to synchronise their sleep and dreams, so getting closer and deepening their feelings.

The also begin to discover new things. For Maria this is music and there is a delightful scene in a music shop where Maria picks up a whole stack of CDs and listens to the lot, in the shop, all day. There’s a palpable joy in her discovering music, then sex and friendship; things she has never really had or understood. It’s not done in funny or quirky manner, it is genuinely heart-warming.

She also has to deal with the downside of friendships, and this nearly ends in tragedy. Endre for all his shyness is far more life weary but there is never any suggestion that he is toying or exploiting her. His cooling of their relationship is just the way that these things go sometimes, and that Maria just doesn’t understand.

It’s a pleasingly odd film that has an amusing seam running through it, though not a comedy, and it could hardly be described as romantic despite the affection that manifests itself. Borbléy and Morcsányi (the latter in a solid screen debut) performances complement almost perfectly, delving into their characters, finding their strengths and flaws, working with them and, for all the metaphor and subtext, crafting two very believable, quite fragile people.