This slow, leisurely paced film tells us the story of two reclusive brothers, whose father has passed away at the very beginning of the film, and their search for human warmth in, from time to time, rather wrong places, including the brothel close by. Even the opening scene is fairly enough for the audience to understand which direction the film will lead us to, as it is set in the local graveyard, showing a bunch of guys carrying an obsolete hearse with a coffin on it. The entire story takes place in a distant Hungarian village shortly before the outbreak of the WW1. Metaphorically, the film is about the lack of political authority that arises from the death of Franz Ferdinand, as 14-year-old is becoming less and less home-keeping by the neglect of their mother, who soon loses the count of the days after her husband died of a heart attack and yet starts a new, morally unacceptable affair with another guy, whose sole positive features, according to the mother, are "an insatiable appetite" and "glorious virility". Regardless of the inconvenient fact that this new comer takes advantage of her concupiscence, she keeps on having him in her bed, without paying attention what a terrible effect this affair might possibly have on her boys. Shortly afterwards, we find out that the new comer is ready for another relationship, as he gets bored with her and wants to go back to his routine, promiscuous love life. Incidentally, the elder brother explores female body at a local brothel, with some "help" from a lady working there.
I saw this film at a special screening (as a part of Cine-Memory screenings) and it was unequivocally haunting and masterfully showed us how disturbing it might be to see two adolescents sinking deeply into a terrible kind of psychosis: paying visits to their father's grave at night, murdering owls and dogs, dwelling at a brothel, peeping naked women etc. As a matter of fact, I am almost sure that the director aimed at showing the audience the jeopardies posed by the lack of authority and political instability -since the WW1's approaching- through two psychotic brothers, seeking for the true meaning of life and conversely becoming a couple of absolute good-for-nothings instead, as a result of the emotional vacuum in their lives caused by the loss of their father. I wouldn't recommend this film to any one, except for those who desperately try to find a two-hour-long drudgery.
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