Kontroll

Starring:SÃ¡ndor CsÃ¡nyi, ZoltÃ¡n Mucsi, Csaba Pindroch, SÃ¡ndor BadÃ¡r, Zsolt Nagy (II), Bence MÃ¡tyÃ¡ssy, GyÃ¶zÃ¶ SzabÃ³, Eszter Balla, LÃ¡szlÃ³ NÃ¡dasi, PÃ©ter Scherer, Lajos KovÃ¡cs, KÃ¡roly HorvÃ¡th (IV), GyÃ¶rgy Cserhalmi, JÃ¡nos Kulka, LÃ¡szlÃ³ Bicskei Kiss, Zsolt LÃ¡szlÃ³, BalÃ¡zs LÃ¡zÃ¡r, JÃ³zsef TÃ³th, EnikÃ¶ Eszenyi, BalÃ¡zs MihÃ¡lyfi
Director: NimrÃ³d Antal
Studio: Velocity / Thinkfilm
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

The setting of Kontroll is the Budapest subway system, one of the largest and oldest in the world, and a place that becomes an omniscient character in an ambitious film that jumbles dark comedy, slick action, and horror-movie conventions. The other main character is Bulcsú (Sándor Csányi), part of a team of disheveled ticket inspectors--controllers--who roam the grimy, fluorescent-lit city-under-the-city in a soul-destroying ritual. The job has become such a part of Bulcsú that he never leaves the underground. He has taken to sleeping on empty platforms and getting progressively more unkempt as he accumulates more bruises, bloody noses, and bitterness from his scraps with a variety of unseemly creatures of the night (and day). Among the post-punk, post-communist habitués of this subterranean metropolis are a cute girl in a teddy-bear suit, a rival gang of ticket inspectors who like to play a deadly game of chicken with express trains, and a hooded specter who may or may not be pushing people under subway wheels at crowded stops. First-time director Nimród Antal keenly juggles black comedy, character types, and genre styles, making the most of the weird angles and inherent dark creepiness of his chosen backdrop. Kontroll keeps pace as a hip, flashy, fast-moving set piece by any international measure. --Ted Fry

Description

The Budapest subway system, the world's oldest, is a dark labyrinthine netherworld as vast and various as the city above. Hordes of people pass through on their way to better, brighter places. There are some who spend most of their lives underground- the ticket inspectors or "Controllers" who are assigned in teams to sections of the system and whose thankless job is to ensure that no passengers ride without paying… Deployed by those in control- they are a much-despised lot…who on his way wants to be stopped and asked for a receipt by petty officers that represent power at its most powerless.

Customer Reviews:

Fun, Frenetic, and Frightening.......2007-05-25

In the Prologue, the narrator relates that his friend director, Nimrod Antal, has made a film about the struggle between good and evil. Using the Hungarian subway system as symbol, they jump start `Kontroll,' (Control), an innovative movie almost exclusively taking place on or near train platforms. In which case, the underground system is hell on earth with its Satan being a black hooded hoodlum morbidly seeking victims to push onto the tracks to collide with oncoming trains. Surveillance cameras abound all over, yet the subway executives (or "suits" as they call them) can't seem to put their finger on the epidemic of alleged suicides they are unable to avert. In between some confrontational scenes, there is plenty going on to keep our attention. Besides being unique, 'Kontroll' has that rare ability to mix laughs, tenderness, and brutality with jarring shifts in a way that actually works. (No wonder Hungary's box office made this movie their homegrown 'Star Wars'.)

The focus starts with a drunken women who stumbles alone on the underground platform, comically fumbling with opening a bottle of champagne. Abruptly, we soon see nothing left of her but half a high-heeled shoe remaining after a high speed train passes. Next, we come to an apparent homeless man, leaning against a post. A man gently tells him that he has a bloody nose. To which he has seemingly stirred belligerence, only we find he is a ticket inspector, Bulscu' (Csany Sa'ndor), who makes the station his home. At first hard to like, his toughness fades later to a good-natured presence, especially given the nature of his position facing rough colleagues and customers. No wonder. For the gruffness, many vignettes show the thankless job of getting customers to pay. Given the prologue's disclaimer of "fiction over fact" [to paraphrase], we certainly are given a vision of purgatory to boot. The morning meeting finds Bulscu' has overslept, but he doesn't miss much with a surly supervisor assigning tasks and urgently lecturing them to save suicidal people jumping onto the tracks. Then, the dreary atmosphere turns to color with myriads of passengers who evade and harass the ticket inspectors. Just a partial cross-section, we get gays and women who flirt with the inspectors to pass on payment with dialogue that is always witty and "fresh". One decent passenger is a beautiful woman patron who wears a bear costume. (One well-edited scene has the employees going to mandatory psychologist sessions. Besides making us laugh, they inadvertently provide a better reason than Michael Moore to have a universal health care system--no matter which side you take on the issue.)

`Kontrol' is a unique movie ride. It could easily have been too bleak, but the variety of development is well constructed. Besides balancing the atmosphere, the transition from surreal to stark realism is nearly ingenious without derailing the plot. `Kontroll' is a quirky film that delivers colorful laughs as well as a menacingly dark atmosphere that is sure to give one gooseflesh. Besides that, I am partial to the way they draw from American chase scenes, like French movie, L'Enfant, yet managing to provide their own playful twists. 'Kontroll' is a movie that matters.

(Special thanks to fellow reviewer, Michael Acuna, who--besides being a tireless resource--recommended this hidden gem and put it on the map.)

Excellent and Unique.......2007-04-26

This film has hillarious characters but I would not classify it as a comedy. This piece kind of exists on its own plane. It has an "in your face" feel of the characters (reminicent of "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels") but they are in some fantasy underground subway world.

Kontroll follows a group of ticket collectors who seems to spend no time above ground. Especially the main character, who sleeps in the terminal and doesn't look to have seen sunlight in too long a time. The whole theme of being underground is very metaphorical. Many characters are symbolic in ways too.

It is quite a dreampiece, but not too fantastic. We go odd places and meet the denizens of the underground. Some people are kind, others you wouldn't want to be alone with. Especially one mysterious character who stalks the underground and shoves people down to the tracks and to their deaths.

Kontroll has an interesting pace to it. It's fast, but not too fast. It moves like a subway would. Quickly, then a short stop, then moving on again.

I really felt a warmth towards this film. It is oddly touching at times, hillarious at others. All the characters are well thought out and well acted. It is well balanced, complete and left me feeling positive.

Great Hungarian movie!.......2007-03-06

I bought this DVD on a "blind buy" and wasn't disappointed. I will dispense with the story and just give u my opinion on the movie and the overall disc. I have the Hungarian edition which is the version u really need to go for. It has an anomorphic transfer unlike the US verion,it has Hungarian DTS,Dolby 5.1 and stereo sound unlike the US version and,most important of all,it is English friend with OPTIONAL English subs unlike the "burnt in" English subs to be found on the US disc! The movie has a very European feel about it which is just great. Give this DVD a whirl and import it from Hungary!

Do you know who I am? I'm the the Controll!.......2007-03-02

"Kontroll" follows the story of a rag-tag group of controllers who's job is to stalk the vast Budapest subway system and ensure that no passengers are rideing for free. The leader of this group is Bulcsu', a man who's anxiety of compition for his contracting job has lead him underground. Where he stays 24/7, never ventureing above ground. The film does an excellent job of depicting the controllers interactions with the subway riders. The controllers meet everyone from the needle wielding madman to a girl in a teddybear costume, who Bulcsu stikes up an endearing romance. The funniest parts of the film are when the controllers encounter "Bootsey", a young punk who gets his kicks by tormenting Bulcsu's gang. This leads to some of the best "On foot" chase scenes I've seen. The main plot of the film is when the Controllers discover that a mysterious hooded figure is pushing people infront of trains. When Bulcsu is suspected of comiting these murders, he decides to go on a hunt for the hooded one to prove his innocence. or is it a hunt for self discovery? This is truely a great movie and one of my personal favorites. It has wonderful cinamatography, colorful characters and an amazing soundtrack. enjoy

"Repo Man" Hungarian style?.......2007-01-04

Even if you have never actually ridden on one of those amazing steep, deep, and dangerously fast Budapest Metro escalators that swoop you down from street level deep into their subway system, I urge you to take a virtual journey into an imaginative and quirky cinematic world every bit as fantastic as Alice's adventures "underground."

This film is a funny and funky thriller but certainly has very little to do with the real Metro system in Hungary's capital city.

Yes, in Budapest they really do have control agents who ride along incognito and then suddenly whip out their official armbands and start checking for passengers onboard without valid tickets -- but just like the earlier American film "Repo Man" (a similarly despised way to make a living) this film is hardly a slice of "real" life or meant to be!

In fact, one of the funniest bits in the film -- and the first thing you see -- is a poker-face statement read by what we're told is a representative of the Hungarian Metro system reminding us that what we're about to see is more a parable of good and evil than a depiction of actual events or conditions in the Hungarian Metro system.

The humor is dark, but anyone who really and truly hates their current job (or suffers from bouts of depression in general) will probably identify with the controllers in this film -- especially if the hated job involves interactions with the public at large!

Like a number of other Hungarian films I've been watching recently, the characters are both wildly eccentric but quite charming innocents at heart (in a perverse sort of way, or course).

Yes, there is depictions of "sex and violence" in this film, but not anything as graphic as what's on American TV every evening, and these scenes are handled with a discrete finesse that is quite impressive. For example, there are some tarty underground prostitutes in the film, but a girl who rides the subway in a bulky pink Teddy Bear costume (think Barnie, not a Playboy bunny) is hero's love interest and sexier than anything in a skimpy skirt!

If you enjoy foreign films in general, try this one for sure. As for me, I'm rapidly becoming hooked on Hungarian films -- and (despite my pen name) I'm not even Hungarian!

Average customer rating:

Fun, Frenetic, and Frightening
Excellent and Unique
Great Hungarian movie!
Do you know who I am? I'm the the Controll!
"Repo Man" Hungarian style?

Kontroll
Starring: Sándor Csányi , Zoltán Mucsi , Csaba Pindroch , Sándor Badár , and Zsolt Nagy (II)
Director: Nimród Antal
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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