THE WAY PRESS REVIEWS
..."It is not accidental that the film which I found the most fascinating is seemingly concerned with the personal life of a man.
The film is "The Way" directed by Ferenc Moldoványi who chose a semi-documentary method to join an ageing Chinese on a trip home who found refuge in Budapest after the trials he suffered at the hands of the cultural revolution.
Now he would like to get married again but the differences between him and the new generation
Chinese are so great that it renders their communication very difficult or even impossible.
The film is a human portrait which reflects the irreparable rift between generations and damages caused by history."... UMBERTO ROSSI - L'UNITA
______________________________________________ "Ferenc Moldovanyi's remarkable film reaches beyond conventional documentary in search of what he terms" a soul-stirring, a more genuine reality".
His subject is Liu Zhixian, a sixty year old former professor and member of Budapest's Chinese community, who fled his home country in 1990.
Searching for a new life partner, he resorts to an agency and returns to Beijing to meet his intended young bride. Deriving much of its power central character, the film touches on the personal and the political, and the divisions resulting from civilisation and history.
A gradual process of self-revelation is complemented by the film's elegiac images, which take their pace and meaning from his reflections, both humorous and philosophical.
Winner of three Hungarian Film Critics Prizes this year (for direction, best cinematography, and music)" PETER HAMES 42ND LONDON FILM FESTIVAL ______________________________________________ ..."An exceptional film. The subject matter is the encounter of two civilisations, the role people play in it. It is also about life and the price we all have to pay for living it.
Can one really lose one's own identity? Can one have two homes? Is the country, where one happens to live, a true home?
Can one turn back time and make up for past mistakes? Is it possible to free oneself from sins?
Where does one belong or come from and where will the way he takes lead him?
Long sequences, convincingly photographed dialogues and authentic characters all make it possible for the viewer to ponder upon a series of questions about the meaning of life thus joining the heroes of the film which has luckily managed to avoid the cheap cliché of depicting the life of the Chinese living in East Europe."... VLADIMIR STRIC -KINÉMA ______________________________________________ "The director has the eye of a true film maker in his approach to this documentary, rather than that of a journalist. Warm, sober, gentle, lyrical, sensitive and sensible are just some of the adjectives raised in our discussion of this poetic portrait of an ordinary man reflecting on his life.
Another interesting and curious aspect of the work is the revelation of a strong relationship between China and Hungary. We particularly liked the use of music to enhance the simple story." THE COMMENT OF THE JURY OF THE INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF FILM SOCIETIES IFFS AT THE 27TH INTERNATIONAL FIGUEIRA DA FOZ FILM FESTIVAL, PORTUGAL, 1998 ______________________________________________ "The IFFK has thrown up a gem, a work which opens a new chapter in film grammar. Ferenc Moldovanyi's work ,"The Way", is neither fiction nor a pure documentary and unveils an expanse of cinematic possibilities.
At work is a director who is almost scared of treading on travelled territory.
Almost magically, he glides, smoothly along virgin path he has chosen. "The Way" completely avoids usual stereotypes and is structurally a very sophisticated film." ARUN, NEW INDIAN EXPRESS ______________________________________________ "...Maybe because it is a co-production or because it is inter-cultural but Ferenc Moldovanyi's film "The Way" completely avoids the usual stereotypes. (...)
A nearly Duras-like voice of a narrator gives the rhythm of the gentle flow of time.
The camera of the marvellous Tibor Máté sometimes lingers to show a minute detail of life and at others it opens up to a metropolis or cosmical landscapes." PAOLO VECCHI - CINEFORUM ______________________________________________ "Az Út is so perfectly filmed, it is hard to believe its origins. Moldoványi creates an atmosphere, which is totally immersed in its subject matter and the narrative, the pace and the visual style would seem to indicate that the director is Chinese.
Az Út is a wonderfully watchable film, although it took me five or ten minutes to slow my expectations down to its meditative pace.
As with all good philosophical films, the premises do not weigh down on the plot and the story is amusing as it is enlightening." ANDREW J. HORTON, THE ELECTRONIC NEW PRESENCE ______________________________________________ "...The film's beautifully etched portrait of emotional and political exile resolves itself by maintaining a tone of tolerance, irony and attention throughout." PETER CULLEY- VANCOUVER FILM FESTIVAL ______________________________________________ ..."I have seen the surprise film of the Hungarian Film Week an irregular documentary the strangest lovestory of the decade, a road-movie delicately painted on silk with China ink i.e. something that does not exist in our part of the world."... GUSZTÁV SCHUBERT - FILMVILÁG ______________________________________________ "Structurally speaking, this is a remarkably sophisticated film. (...)
Director Ferenc Moldoványi frames this modern fairy tale so carefully we can never be entirely sure whether he is commenting ironically on western or eastern mores.
In any case, the world he creates is one that every exile will recognise as home." M.H. THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT VANCOUVER ______________________________________________ ..."The carefully structured film cleverly balances documentary and fiction relying on the dialogues, the images and the marvellous music. The main points of this intellectual movie is ephemeral life, the relationship of father and son and the meaning of life in general.
The excellent camera work of Tibor Máté forms a close unity with these ideas. This is a true art movie..." ALEX DELEON - KINO WARSAW ______________________________________________ "The Way is a wonderful film that loses very little in translation, thanks to the honesty of its subjects and Moldovanyi's deft hand." THE RIVERFRONT TIMES ST. LOUIS ______________________________________________ ..."Poetry and wisdom exudes from the images. A subtle portrait is gradually drawn by Liu Zhixian's honest self-revelation enhanced by a historical and social background and a series of picturesque shots.
I was reminded of sad and beautiful elegies by the harmonies, the atmosphere, the melody and locations of the film. It is made even more fascinating by the fact that there is no artificiality in the depiction of Liu's confessions."... JÓZSEF VERESS - NÉPSZABADSÁG ______________________________________________ ..."Humour and philosophical wisdom mingles in the film. Acting evolves into reality. This humiliating honesty, the self-revelation is maybe the most riveting experience of the viewer used to cunning role-play and trivial games.
Everything works in this film."... ÉVA BÁRSONY - NÉPSZAVA ______________________________________________ ..." The film is about an ageing Chinese professor, a ninety minute confession about his life, his disillusionment, his feelings of love, his beliefs and losses which was his lot in Budapest and China as well. It is a special kind of film, documentary-cum-fiction.
It is neither Chinese nor Hungarian it is simply clever and beautiful."... SÁNDOR ÉRDI - STUDIO '97 ______________________________________________ "This charming and engaging story of a middle-aged Chinese immigrant in Hungary touched the jury. It dealt with some of the hardships of his earlier life in China, his estrangement from his son in China, and his continuing search for love, and was highly appreciated." THE COMMENT OF THE JURY AT THE 50TH PRIX ITALIA, ASSISI, 1998 ______________________________________________ "While this dreamy, soft-spoken movie seems to be about an aging Chinese immigrant looking for love through the personal ads from his home in Budapest, Hungarian director Ferenc Moldovanyi has infused every scene with the weight of existentialism; it exudes the vast and insignificant feeling of having realized that planet Earth is probably just a tiny speck of dirt in a space creature's eyebrow. The way that Moldovanyi overlaps the old man's small-voiced monologues with slow-burn footage is incredibly subtle, panning along the back doors of restaurant kitchens so we can peek in at the unknowing customers and the staff.
These voiceovers--in which the old man describes his loveless marriage, his devotion to education, and the horrible years of the Cultural Revolution, often in the form of vague riddles such as "You want to take the secret of life to heaven"- take on new meaning when they're coupled with smooth, elegant footage of everyday scenes.
Watching the movie feels akin to staring at a passing landscape from a slow train, pondering its ordinary beauty. Scenes in which the old man chitchats with his hairdresser, scopes out a potential girlfriend, and visits with his son bear the same meandering spirit--one that leaves a complex impression of tedium, yearning, and humble affection. The fact that nothing really happens throughout the film only makes its bittersweet impact all the more intriguing. Carolyn Petrie - City Pages Minneapolis-St.Paul ______________________________________________ An immigrant's search for love Hungarian director Ferenc Moldoványi takes an entirely different approach in his outstanding film The Way. Moldoványi eschews a bland presentation of the facts. In so far as he directly deals with social issues it is through the eyes of one individual - Liu Zhixian, a 55-year-old Chinese intellectual, now living in Hungary.
Liu was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. His marriage failed and so, in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, he left China and his only son to settle in Budapest, Hungary. Liu has no interest in the preoccupations of his fellow-countrymen in Hungary and their efforts to enrich themselves. His mission is to find a loving wife from China and reestablish a meaningful relationship with his son. But the women he meets are only concerned with his assets. For them love is measured by wealth and family connections. The film records his most recent trip to China to meet his son and a potential wife.
From this simple story Moldoványi, with exceptional camera work by Tibor Máthé and sensitive editing by Mártha Révész, translates the inner-most thoughts of Liu into a lyrical portrait of the shattered dreams and loneliness of countless immigrants around the world. The soundtrack is a combination of comments from Liu and letters, his son's poetry and traditional Chinese music.
One is continuously forced to remind oneself that this is not a drama but a documentary; that the film's subjects are not actors but real people.
The director's empathy with his characters, his sensitivity to their illusions and hopes generates a hauntingly beautiful film and one that deserves a wider audience Case studies of social breakdown ,
By Richard Phillips (45th Sydney Film Festival) ______________________________________________
K I N O E Y E : Between Cultures, Between Documentary and Art Ferenc Moldovanyi's Az Ut By Andrew J Horton, @ Central Europe has long attracted attention issues raised by its minorities: Hungarians in Slovakia and Romania, Russians in the Baltics, Serbs in Croatia, and Roma everywhere, to give but a few examples. With so many different long-standing cultural mixes, it is interesting that Ferenc Moldovanyi should choose a totally different category of minority - namely the Chinese community in Budapest - as the basis for his most recent film Az Ut (The Way, 1997). Az Ut is what Moldovanyi describes as an attempt to find a "more soul-stirring, a more genuine reality." In doing this he has created a film whose feel lies totally within the realms of the artform whilst its subject-matter - a Chinese dissident living in Hungary - is documentary. Although Liu Zhixian has lived in Budapest for years he speaks no Hungarian (and consequently the film is in Chinese). An intellectual persecuted in the cultural revolution, his life has been a story of personal unhappiness and misfortune, and leaving China, whilst it has made his life easier, does not seem to have made it any more enjoyable. The film is his journey to try and reclaim some small inner pleasure in the closing days of his life and to make sense of the suffering he has experienced. His principal quest is to find a wife in his homeland and bring her to Hungary and, as a conversation with his hairdresser reveals, he has already spent considerable amounts of time and money failing in this endeavour. The girls he is introduced to by the agency he uses are too interested in his money and his Hungarian citizenship to be able to satisfy him and the relationships inevitably end disastrously. Recounting his woes to his hairdresser evokes both the tragedy and the comedy of these failed attempts to find happiness. On top of this, he writes to his son Liu Yanghe back in China. Contrasting with his father's philosophical calm at the personal misery he has lived through, Liu Yanghe is torn by angst. He cannot take part in society and can only write his adolescent poetry and try to destroy himself. In between these two plots we learn more of Liu Zhixian's life in China: his first true love, his forced marriage to a working class girl and his eventual emigration.
The three threads to his life weave around each other and although unconnected they do not detract from each other or spoil the feel of the film as a whole. The pace is slow and most of our information comes from Liu Zhixian's narration, with additional monologues from his son and very occasional dialogues. As we might expect of a Chinese work of art, the film is beautiful, pure and stripped of all superfluous drama, with the photography and the music being captivating in themselves. The film concludes when Liu Zhixian returns from a visit to China, which had the twin-purposes of seeing his son and meeting another young girl interested in marriage and, it transpires, in money. On the plane back, Liu Zhixian's narrative unexpectedly draws the three threads of his life together, unifying the thus-far disparate elements. In one short passage, a complex and unresolvable life is suddenly laid bare and the solutions to it become clear. Az Ut is so perfectly filmed, it is hard to believe its origins. Moldovanyi creates an atmosphere which is totally immersed in its subject matter and the narrative, the pace and the visual style would seem to indicate that the director is Chinese. Although the main character lives in Budapest and the director is Hungarian, there is no compromise towards a Hungarian perspective of Liu Zhixian. Liu Zhixian makes no comment about the people whose country he chose to live in and there is no attempt to either romanticise or demonise Hungary and its culture.
The Hungarian viewpoint is totally absent. This all raises the obvious question of why a Hungarian would want to make such a film. It might well be something to do with our ability to find faults with others easier than we find them with ourselves. Longing and desire exists in every society and neither China nor Hungary (and especially not post-1989 Hungary) is an exception. By focusing on his Chinese hero, Moldovanyi gives this longing - and the errors in life which follow from it - a universal feel. We can forgive Moldovanyi for berating us since he does so indirectly through the self-analysis Liu Zhixian applies to his life. It is hard not to be impressed with his wisdom and hard-earned experience of Liu Zhixian. His grandfatherly tone of voice is comforting and friendly and it is pleasant listening to its warm tones, even if you do not actually understand Chinese. In falling in love with Liu Zhixian a little, the audience can believe his self-criticism, comprehend the weight of it and take it on-board. Had Moldovanyi told a Hungarian story, we might have missed his point and felt less inclined to listen to his moral tale of longing for something for something you do not want or need. If such praises for the film's intellectual and aesthetic merits make it sound like a heavyweight, then I assure you it is my writing which is at fault and not the film. Az Ut is a wonderfully watchable film, although it took me five or ten minutes to slow my expectations down to its meditative pace. As with all good philosophical films, the premises do not weigh down on the plot and the story is amusing as much as it is enlightening. Andrew J Horton ______________________________________________
 "The Way" Heavenly peacelessness by Gusztáv Schubert Ferenc Moldoványi's film-portrait about a quixotic Chinese. An emotional journey from the Danube to the Yangtze. The Way. Our Way. Ways and ways leading nowhere. On the way to socialism. The way our mind works. The great journey, The Way. The topic is eternal and ancient, flat and dusty just like a highway. It is not exactly a sensual title luring people to the cinema not even written in capital letters, nay indeed it does not help at all.
And all the same... I have seen the surprise film of the Hungarian Film Week an irregular documentary the strangest lovestory of the decade, a road-movie delicately painted on silk with China ink i.e. something that does not exist in our part of the world. It's lack was not even sorely missed, it's uncharted white patch did not mock my knowledge of the periodic chart. And now it is here, astonishingly defying the rules of the chart. An old hand would shape it, clip the odd bits and corners the green critic would rather change the system.
He will have a spacious suite opened for the unexpected guest. It speaks Chinese with Hungarian subtitles. (Its next-door neighbour is a Hungarian speaking Russian, "Letgohang Vaska".) This is the first great idea of "The Way" to split the scene of Hungary, to view from afar, from angel's perspective or from a Chinese one because, see and behold in the cinemas, it cannot be done in Hungarian yet. Consequently the hero is: Chinese. He is not an old man, about sixty-five. He has been living in Budapest for six or seven years and is observing us with his mischievous slit eyes. The comedy may commence, the story of the Savage. Let there be no mistake about it, the Savage is us. Four thousand years is looking at us. However no satire, just yet. Hai Ming (to call the hero by his assumed name at last) is not the bringer of civilisation, he is not interested in savages. He is at home here living the sacred hours of a better spiritual existence.
Chinatown in Budapest is the centre of the world. Budapest otherwise is beautiful, the Danube flows, in his mind's eye, like a precious scroll of a magnificent China ink drawing. Hungary and China border on one another. Did I say border? Hungary has been conquered, it is now an annexed colony. Only love is missing. Yes, we know, you know that such an "only" has lead sky-high towers tumble down into the dust in a blinding moment. So one must start all over again, return to the Yangtze, get a woman, a Chinese songbird who will sneak Spring into the bachelor's dusk with her spritely song. The tragedy may commence. However something else commences as well. A sweet and sour Chinese tale about the puppet pops who is regularly humiliated by desirable maidens, who walk away with his money and finally, just for his edification, beat him black and blue. They are all educated hussies, singers and doctors, but why would whoring and a university diploma exclude each-other? A sweet and sour tale about the last gallant who brings his vision of Dulcineas into a profit-oriented, rough world. The last sage who lives, meditates and acts ( or does not act rather) according to the rules of The Way, Tao in this shabby, lawless society.
"Life, love and death form an inseparable unity. It gives coherence to human life from birth to death. The completeness of love is made up of the unity of emotion and desire, body and soul. My view of love is the same, although I suffer defeat again and again, it will always guide my actions." Well now... A true Hungarian person versed in modern and post-modern would never utter such words. Neither would a satellite surfing Castilian grandee.
China is the only place left where such things are said. Or maybe not even there. "If there is money there will be love."-hints the china-doll like folksinger lady, a wife-candidate, to the sage. Fine but not very Tao. " All right,",says the Chinatown sage to Miss Wu,"but I cannot accept this. I believe that if there is love there will be money. I have always had a respect for love. It is like a shrine for me. It must not be tainted by the material things in life.
" Souls must unite with souls so no bride this time either. Time to return to Budapest. My God, does this chap come from the Moon? The answer is easy: he comes from the past. He is easily over two thousand years old. Quite a big difference in age and it will get worse. He has survived the book-burning Red Guardsmen and he will surely survive our sophisticated cultural revolution too. In the first case his mind remained sane and in the second the reason is that he does not believe his own eyes, he lives his life as if the gallant, civilised age of Lao Ze existed for ever. He is a comical majesty, a clever-noble ridicule, "The Way" is Don Quix Ote's film. And now all pale faces will have to blush of shame. We do not need to be afraid of philosophers but quixotic, batty knights will always be right ( in a way of course their haggard truth eternally flanked by Sancho Pansa the moon-faced doubt).
Those who have never experienced adventure or love who have never risen one iota above reality , were always clinging to matter- for all they may think they are only walking cadavers, they have never lived. Hai Ming holds a real trumpcard and there is no power or ridicule that can take it away from him: this man at the age of sixty something realises that he has never been in love and he is not willing to leave it at that. This professor of literature exiled to the countryside, the intellectual classed as a "ninth stinking reactionary" bunks up with a dull, earth-stinking peasant girl during the cultural revolution thinking that she would do as a wife and a cover. He spends eighteen years squatting in the hen-house, meanwhile there is the mirage of a beautiful teacher who does not listen to her heart and consequently goes mad.
Sixty years of dead silence: it is something to be horrified by. It is something to be fought: Hai Ming decides to fight the battle at the last moment. Who is brave enough to follow him? Who will not " go gently into the night"? Who will "rant and rave if daylight should shatter"? Let's not delude ourselves there are only few among us. The cemeteries from San Diego to Tzinghuangtao are full of scattered, hardly used, unfulfilled lives. "The Way" is no fable teaching a moral lesson. It is the portrait of a fearless daydreamer not that of a philosopher. However, quite importantly, there is also a philosopher in the film. The adult son of the hero, he left behind in China, a soaring astral man full of theories, poetry and sunshine who will not tolerate that "time should limit him to material existence".
He does not want to" grow up, get married, raise children, buy the coffin soon and wait for death." He seems to be saying the same thing as his father but let's not give in easily. It is not the same after all: the son is not fighting for life. At the age of twenty he keeps struggling against being born. He is a more simple and more tragic character than his father. His way cannot be followed and there is nothing more to be said about it. "Have you ever been in love?", his father asks (he is not really interested in him apart from this topic). "Art is my girlfriend. Poems are the lovers I passionately love. Novels are courtesans who provide for me. Short stories are my maids who follow me like a shadow." Rather nice but only literature. The son's poetry is mere sophistry the father's philosophy has a melody. Just like the film. Tibor Szemző's acoustic tapestry inspired by Chinese vocal sounds and Tibor Máthé's ever moving way-ward camera renders this documentary palpable as opposed to others which are usually sadly reduced to puritanism."The Way" will not recruit followers for Tao, for the fashionable Eastern cults but for this brave and foolish soul music. "The way which can be put into words but which is not eternal." Music is needed here. The sound of the cracked yellow bell, a splinter of by-gone entirety, will not sound Chinese for our ears. Translated by Agnes Szabó
from the June issue of "FILMVILÁG"
6/1997 |
