Just the Wind

A wind of violence is blowing across Hungary. In 2008-2009, many Roma were killed. Molotov cocktail attacks decimated entire families. Some of these attacks were not even mentioned in the newspapers. Based on these events, Benedek Fliegauf follows the ordeal of two children and their mother over twenty-four hours, in the style of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. (...) Far removed from traditional folklore, the warmth of Tony Gatlif or the alcohol-fuelled Fellinian delirium of Emir Kusturica, Fliegauf goes beyond the ethnic chronicle and veers towards the horrific. Carried by the wind through a Hungary wracked by racism and misery, evil has spread among the people. (...) Like a demonic presence, the aerial camera scrutinises their every step. Evil has contaminated the landscape to such an extent that the violence is palpable in every shot. Whether it is in squalid shelters teeming with animal carcasses or in bucolic landscapes, the threat never fades. It has crept into the very air that this family breathes. A long tracking shot follows Rio in close-up as he passes a group of gypsies on the edge of a forest: the men behind him are just hostile shadows. The indistinct woods seem to conceal assassins lurking there to track him discreetly. Every sound carries its own threat: the song of a bird or a woman, a muffled voice or the wind sweeping through the trees. Beyond the force of an Amnesty International award-winning statement, there is something of the horror film about this way of arousing unease by following the living dead. (...) ‘It's just the wind’, Anna tries to reassure us. Yes, but a wind that blows no good. (Frédéric Mercier; Transfuge Magazine)�