Flicks, Luke Buckmaster
Is there a harsher juxtaposition than bucolic images of nature followed by bodies being slaughtered? Hungarian writer/director Ildiko Enyedi's intensely contemplative drama On Body and Soul, which has won a slew of awards including top prize at last year’s Sydney Film Festival, begins with beautiful icy-blue shots of deer in snowy wilderness, then violently changes tempo – venturing inside an abattoir in Budapest, where cows look dolefully into the lens. We discover those images of deer enter the minds of the film’s lead characters while they sleep. Will the abattoir symbolise the death of dreams? Or the difference, perhaps, between fantasy and meat hook reality?
Full review
