My film review: Delta - A waterside view of Hungary or anywhere.
The Hungarian film ‘Delta’ only by language denotes that the film is actually based in that country. A real strength of this film lies within the brooding atmosphere that envelopes the film like a strange weather day. A son arrives at a small town. He greets his mother and then his sister who has just been doing some rather bloody work with a pig moments early. Very little background is given about his family relationship. Why he left? What is his relationship to his sister? who suffers greatly in a town with shades of the American hillbilly stocked with characters which feature in films such as Deliverance. The sheer conservatism of these characters and there town are almost mystical and as an audience we take the sons view as he returns. Like him we are visiting.
The son who it has to be said is one hell of a carpenter which combined with money gained perhaps by work in the west or from the capital but who cares he has it and he sets out on a mini Fitzcarraldo project to build a house offshore in the delta. To do this he must first buy wood from what is now his stepfather who like many a step mother before him is a bad egg all round. Film cliches, sorry. Interestingly when buying the wood the stepfather with his talk of permits seems to be an echo of the controlling communist era were the state dictated much of what you could or could not do.
Bela Tarr was a script consultant on this film and you cannot help feel his presence in sequences were characters linger around the bar. The son will arrive with empty plastic bottles looking not for water but for brandy. Indeed the film is quite creative in its drinking habits later we see drunken characters dip bread into their drink and eat up like the hungry boys they are. Even a melon is filled with alcoholic drink and used as replacement wine glass. No washing up after so not such a bad idea.
Central to film is the relationship between the brother and sister. As this draws closer incest begins and a subtle sexual relationships is formed. This aspect of the film is neither shocking or contains much tension. We get the feeling from locals who cast them as outsiders and when the son frequents the bar we get the icy looks and those stares familiar to anyone who has seen Amercian Werewolf in London.
The crowning achievement and what gives the film both appeal and power is the atmosphere generated by both the direction and cinematography. The lead characters have presence over dialogue which is not in abundance. Delta is a film from its opening scenes uses light and the location of the Hungarian Delta were people live as if like marsh Arabs. There small boats traverse the waterways in bright sunlight. All this is a far cry from a bleak urban Hungary depicted in films by Bela Tarr such as Damnation. Nor is the film as ambitious as the directors earlier film Johanna set in what can be described as the ultimate failing hospital with opera. The actors blend into the natural ecosystem of the waterways. The townspeople of the Delta have their traditions not so much subverted by the watery delta but blended in, take the funeral of a local drunk which is calmly majestic as the boats and dead body move slowly up the delta.
The films underwhelming narrative takes second place to the creation of an other worldly atmosphere. The central performances are good but you cannot help feeling that the athmosphere of the film has somewhat subverted any strong narrative tension. The film is subtle and the soundtrack does try and inject menace and tension. Though at turns the soundtrack has a haunting country strain. By the end of Delta you feel you have watched a good film that would have been better had it had a a stronger narrative story to tell. This film deserves to be seen as the imagery rather than the story will linger long in your memory.
Resources:
A delta is a landform where the mouth of a river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake or another river. A delta is formed only when a channel deposits sediment into another body of water
