Delta

Colour, 35 mm
Hungary, Germany, 2008, 92 min
Section: Open Eyes

Synopsis

A quiet young man returns to his native region, the wild Delta, where the villagers live cut off from the world around them. Here he has the chance to get acquainted with the sister he has never known. He decides to build himself a home there and, while working on the house, he and his sister become closer than social convention permits. Punishment from the xenophobic villagers is not long in coming. The only representative of Eastern European cinema in competition at Cannes this year, Delta deals sensitively with its thorny subject matter yet includes some gritty scenes. The relationship between the sibling couple gives an impression of being pure and uncorrupted, and the director himself confesses that he was not looking to make a film about incest so much as to explore the boundaries of personal freedom. The minimalist film plays out at an almost meditatively slow tempo in a visually attractive setting amidst uninhabited nature. The isolated environment of the village surrounded by water helps build a strong drama experienced more inwardly than outwardly.

About the director

Kornél Mundruczó (b. 1975, Gödöllö, Hungary) studied acting and then film direction at the College of Dramatic and Film Arts in Budapest. He grabbed international attention right from the start with his shorts Afta (2001), Little Apocrypha no. 1 (Kis apokrif no. 1, 2002), Joan of Arc on the Night Bus (Jött egy busz,  2003), Little Apocrypha no. 2 (Kis apokrif no. 2, 2004) and Lost and Found - Six Glances of a Generation (2005). His feature debut Pleasant Days (Szép napok, 2002) won a Golden Leopard in Locarno in 2002 for Best First or Second Film. Mundruczó’s second film was an adaptation of the story of Joan of Arc, Johanna (2005), which premiered in the Un certain regard section at Cannes. Delta is the director’s third feature film, and took the award for Best Film at the Hungarian Film Week.