On Body and Soul: a quiet and quirky character study / romance drama founders on a thin and manipulative plot

Ildiko Endelyi, “On Body and Soul / Teströl és lélekröl ” (2017)

A quirky romance drama on the universal human desire for connection with others, and the struggles that must be overcome due to the interplay of individual disadvantages and the realities of everyday life in a machine-like society, this film starts with much creative potential, two unusual main characters and beautiful cinematography but founders on an insubstantial story that borders on being manipulative and creepiness. Much of the film is a character study revolving around two people who are socially isolated and/or crippled in their communication. Endre (Geza Morcsanyi) is chief financial officer and Maria (Alexandra Borbely) a newly appointed quality inspector at an abattoir when a theft occurs and the incident is reported to police. The police recommend that the staff be psychologically evaluated in order to find the culprit and a psychologist is hired to question everyone and create personality profiles for all employees. She discovers that Endre and Maria have been having the same dream every night – the two have been dreaming about two deer (a stag and a doe) sharing the same small territory around a pond during winter – and suspects them of playing a joke on her.

The psychologist’s suspicions bring Endre and Maria together and the two begin to develop a relationship. However the psychological baggage each brings to the friendship – while highly intelligent and imaginative, Maria appears to have Asperger’s syndrome, and Endre himself has been through various failed relationships with women that have left him alone and cynical, and his crippled left arm is something of an embarrassment – drives them apart with almost devastating results. Endre is not sure if he really loves Maria and Maria, endeavouring to learn what love and physical contact are, is on the verge of committing suicide when Endre rejects her.

The graceful, poetic scenes of the two deer meeting and touching each other’s nose and close-ups of often gory slaughterhouse scenes balance one another and drive home the contrast between what two isolated individuals aspire to and the reality in which they are forced to live, where they may be socially rejected, bullied or forced to tolerate other people’s gossip, infidelities and cynicism about human relationships. There may be a subtle comment on how humans are trapped within a brutal, repetitive, machine-like society (epitomised by the daily routine of the abattoir) where gentle creatures closely related to the deer are slaughtered and cut into pieces: in such a society, is it not natural that only those who are autistic, like Maria with her infallible memory and extreme exactitude, can function so well? Only when humans reconnect with their souls’ desires as expressed in their dreams can they overcome the limitations that their machine worlds place on them and join with one another at last.

The plot is very thin and moves slowly and repetitively towards a predictable if forced climax in which Endre and Maria finally come together emotionally and physically, and their shared dream, in which the two deer (representing their souls and aspirations) finally disappear and winter (representing their obstacles) begins to thaw, can fade away. Endre and Maria’s behaviour towards each other near the end strikes this viewer as out of character (for Maria anyway) and not a little manipulative of audience sympathies. The suicide attempt brings unwanted forced drama; there is no need for Maria to physically emulate Endre in having a crippled left arm. A sub-plot involving a newly hired butcher Sanyi (Ervin Nagy), who may represent a threat to Maria, dissipates very quickly and a running gag about Endre’s fellow manager Jeno (Zoltan Schneider) and his relationship with an unfaithful wife goes nowhere.

The acting is good and restrained, and the domestic settings of the main characters (which reflect their characters) are tasteful and well done. The film does seem very insular and hermetic with its narrow focus on the two characters. Director Endelyi seems uninterested in portraying a wider view of Hungarian society and how the public might view abattoirs and the people who work in them. In a film where metaphors about how dreams might reflect aspects of reality and can be used to influence reality are already quite overburdened, the metaphor of the abattoir as representing society in miniature, and how public opinion of abattoir and abattoir workers might be reflected in the workers’ attitudes toward Maria, would have been no extra baggage.