"Kontroll," notes

1. This paper was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. [return to text]

2. According to the 1995 study by the Institut für die Wissenschaften von Menschen (IWM) and the 1997 study by Meridán, the Hungarian population felt most disappointed by the democratic cgange [diction. Correct word?] from all post-communist Eastern-European countries.

3. Among other awards, in 2004 the film won the Prix de la Jeunesse in Cannes, the Gold Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival for the best film.

4. In the summer of 2013 I had the chance to show the film to a group of Polish and Hungarian secondary school students, and later discuss it with them. My experience was that both Polish and Hungarian teenagers recognized the film and its typical situations as their own: they saw Kontroll as an Eastern-European film about local issues. Moreover, the questions regarding the human subject and one’s relation to power often evoked multigenerational collective memories, which gave a unique, sombre overtone to the otherwise comic situations.

5. “Amikor a mélység visszanéz rád: a posztkommunista tér jellemzoi Antal Nimród Kontroll címu filmjében.” KULTer, 2013/11.

6. Reading the Hungarian press in 2014 seems to prove Paul de Man’s dictum in Allegories of Reading “Metaphors are much more tenacious than facts” (5). 25 years after the democratic change the Hungarian opposition claims that the government oppresses and exploits the people in a degrading and shameful way, while the government in turn claims that it is the alliance of the EU and multinational corporations that does this to the Hungarian people. Degrading oppression seems to be a constant key metaphor in Hungarian political thinking as well as in the film Kontroll.

Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. London: University of California Press, 1984.

Cornell, Katherine F. “Paradise Redrawn. Film and Transition in Eastern Europe.” World Policy Journal, Vol. 10, No 2 (Summer 1993), 57-65).

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Hankiss Elemér: Csapdák és egerek. Magyarország 2009-ben és tovább. Budapest: Manager könyvkiadó—Médiavilág, 2009.

Imre Anikó. Identity Games: Globalization and the Transformation of Media Cultures in the New Europe. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009.

---. “What the body remembers. The Memories of Eastern-European Body Cinema: Pálfi György’s Taxidermia” Loci Memoriae Hungaricae –The Theoretical Foundations of Hungarian "lieux de mémoire" Studies. Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó, 2013. 196-206.

Marks, Laura U. The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000.

Meusburger, Peter. “Knowledge, Cultural Memory, and Politics.” Cultural Memories:

The Geographical Point of View. Ed. Peter Meusburger, Michael Heffernan, Edgar Wunder.

Mezei Sarolta. “Szerve(zete)k és testkép(zet)ek Antal Nimród Kontroll címu filmjében.” Gyori Zsolt és Kalmár György (szerk.) Test és Szubjektivitás a rendszerváltás utáni magyar filmben. ZOOM könyvek. Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó, 2013. 47-61.

Moore, David Chioni. “Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward a Global Postcolonial Critique. PMLA, Vol. 116, No. 1 (Jan 2001), 111-128.

Szekeres András. “A fegyelmezés technikáitól az elsajátítás taktikájáig. Foucault és De Certeau a modernitás térbeli alakzatairól.” http://epa.oszk.hu/01000/01014/00024/pdf/037.pdf

Topping. “The World is Out of Control: Nimrod Antal’s Kontroll (2003) as a Socio-Political Critique of Powerless Individuals in a Postmodern World.” Studies in European Cinema Vol. 7, No. 3. 235-245.

Virginás, Andrea. “New Filmic Waves in Hungarian and Romanian Cinema: Allegories or Stories about Flesh?” Acta Univ. Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 4 (2011), 131-141.

*JUMP CUT* A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA

	Notes 1. This paper was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. [return to text] 2. According to the 1995 study by the Institut für die Wissenschaften von Menschen (IWM) and the 1997 study by Meridán, the Hungarian population felt most disappointed by the democratic cgange [diction. Correct word?] from all post-communist Eastern-European countries. 3. Among other awards, in 2004 the film won the Prix de la Jeunesse in Cannes, the Gold Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival for the best film. 4. In the summer of 2013 I had the chance to show the film to a group of Polish and Hungarian secondary school students, and later discuss it with them. My experience was that both Polish and Hungarian teenagers recognized the film and its typical situations as their own: they saw Kontroll as an Eastern-European film about local issues. Moreover, the questions regarding the human subject and one’s relation to power often evoked multigenerational collective memories, which gave a unique, sombre overtone to the otherwise comic situations. 5. “Amikor a mélység visszanéz rád: a posztkommunista tér jellemzoi Antal Nimród Kontroll címu filmjében.” KULTer, 2013/11. 6. Reading the Hungarian press in 2014 seems to prove Paul de Man’s dictum in Allegories of Reading “Metaphors are much more tenacious than facts” (5). 25 years after the democratic change the Hungarian opposition claims that the government oppresses and exploits the people in a degrading and shameful way, while the government in turn claims that it is the alliance of the EU and multinational corporations that does this to the Hungarian people. Degrading oppression seems to be a constant key metaphor in Hungarian political thinking as well as in the film Kontroll. Works cited Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. London: University of California Press, 1984. Cornell, Katherine F. “Paradise Redrawn. Film and Transition in Eastern Europe.” World Policy Journal, Vol. 10, No 2 (Summer 1993), 57-65). Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Hankiss Elemér: Csapdák és egerek. Magyarország 2009-ben és tovább. Budapest: Manager könyvkiadó—Médiavilág, 2009. Imre Anikó. Identity Games: Globalization and the Transformation of Media Cultures in the New Europe. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009. Jobbit, Steve. “Subterranean Dreaming: Hungarian Fantasies of Integration and Redemption.” Kinokultura, 2008. http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/7/kontroll.shtml Kalmár György. “Amikor a mélység visszanéz rád: A tér posztkommunista jellemzoi Antall Nimród Kontroll címu filmjében.” KULTer, 2013/11. http://kulter.hu/2013/11/amikor-a-melyseg-visszanez-rad/ ---. “What the body remembers. The Memories of Eastern-European Body Cinema: Pálfi György’s Taxidermia” Loci Memoriae Hungaricae –The Theoretical Foundations of Hungarian "lieux de mémoire" Studies. Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó, 2013. 196-206. Kontroll. Antall Nimród, 2003. Black Cat White Cat (Crna macka, beli macor). Emir Kusturica, 1998. Marks, Laura U. The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000. Meusburger, Peter. “Knowledge, Cultural Memory, and Politics.” Cultural Memories: The Geographical Point of View. Ed. Peter Meusburger, Michael Heffernan, Edgar Wunder. Heidelberg: Springer, 2011. 51–69. Mezei Sarolta. “Szerve(zete)k és testkép(zet)ek Antal Nimród Kontroll címu filmjében.” Gyori Zsolt és Kalmár György (szerk.) Test és Szubjektivitás a rendszerváltás utáni magyar filmben. ZOOM könyvek. Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó, 2013. 47-61. Moore, David Chioni. “Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward a Global Postcolonial Critique. PMLA, Vol. 116, No. 1 (Jan 2001), 111-128. Szekeres András. “A fegyelmezés technikáitól az elsajátítás taktikájáig. Foucault és De Certeau a modernitás térbeli alakzatairól.” http://epa.oszk.hu/01000/01014/00024/pdf/037.pdf Topping. “The World is Out of Control: Nimrod Antal’s Kontroll (2003) as a Socio-Political Critique of Powerless Individuals in a Postmodern World.” Studies in European Cinema Vol. 7, No. 3. 235-245. Virginás, Andrea. “New Filmic Waves in Hungarian and Romanian Cinema: Allegories or Stories about Flesh?” Acta Univ. Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 4 (2011), 131-141. To topPrint versionJC 56 Jump Cut home This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

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