Taxidermia (2006)

I really don't get the hype.

Better than most people think

A lot of fun.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Taxidermia is an acquired taste, filled with visceral dismemberment, explicit sex and psychological sickness. But while many will complain about these portions and quickly consider this another controversial gore fest, It is actually a rather incredible film. It's beautifully shot, incorporating never before seen shots and a very distinct style. Its nicely acted and also has some of the best black humour I have seen in a long time. The story seems rather weak on first viewings but after several re-watches, patterns emerge and some clever political satire pokes through, questioning modern life and what talent is. All in All, Its a film that deserves praise, but is quite unlikely to ever see it.

This movie was shown late at night...and on reflection, I have NO idea why I chose to tape it... or subsequently watch it! Its one of those of those movies where I suggest you DON'T watch with friends or snacking! Saying that, watching it with friends may help find the 'comedy' that this movie is classed as.The movie is set over 3 different generations. And three distinctive stories involving the men in this generational story.The first generation is set during or after the second world war in an undisclosed location featuring a Private and his superior and his Superior's family.. I think. The Crux of this story is centred on the very disturbed perversions of the Private.The second generation is centred on what seems to be two obese Hungarian competitors in an eating competition that, in this fictional world, is deemed to be of Olympic Standard. They also seek the attentions of One competitor's wife.The third generation seems remotely normal in comparison to his father and grandfather! However he is equally disturbed, but in a completely different way. He takes pride in his profession as a taxidermist. Seemingly willing to stuff ANYTHING.Cinematically, yes, the photography is good. But the plots are actually to disturbing to really see the overall positive in the movie.Visuals include urinating fire, bestiality, heavy paedophilia overtones and ejaculating to the stars! And that's just the first story...If you can get through story one, I guarantee you will struggle through story two as the is scene after scene of eating and projectile vomiting. If you want a family member to go on a diet, then this is story you should use(!) Story three is more cinematically pleasing in what has to be the strangest 90 minutes I have ever sat through. There's a moment of karma that probably will leave the viewer with a slight smile on their face if only for just a moment.What's actually odd is that the more I write about this movie, the more it sticks in my mind. Whether its a film you really want to stick in your mind is entirely up to the viewer! All I can say is that its a movie that you HAVE to see once, but if you are sane enough... that is all you really need!

The first part/story is about a soldier/peasant/whoever who gets erections looking at just about anything. He spies on peasant women bathing, and masturbates in his shed. Later on, he observes them clandestinely and lustily from his super-shed as they muck about in the snow. He notices a small hole in the wooden wall of the house and decides to stick his proud and filthy member inside it. The masturbation starts (or is it house-screwing? now there's a real intelligent philosophical dilemma that presents itself for all ye pompous/deluded film students). However, the poor schluck doesn't get very far with his sexual shenanigan because a rather bored but grim-looking rooster sees what looks like a worm-like animal to him, and pecks it very hard. (A rare funny moment.) The chronic masturbator emits a loud yowl.But there are more perversions! I've barely even started listing them. Our peasant is apparently also a pedophile, as we watch him lose himself in a fanciful fantasy world that involves a fairy-tale-like house and a girl barely 8 years old. Guess what happens next? Exactly: the peasant takes the girl's hand and tells her to "put it down there". Cut to Hare-Lippy inside his shed: he masturbates to this imagined girl, and the director is even kind enough to show us not only his erect penis but also the semen that shoots out of it - all the way towards the night-sky, towards one of Earth's nearest stars. (Proxima Centauri? Perhaps his semen will start off a whole new world/civilization of filthy-minded attention-seeking Hungarian directors there...) Was this Art? Symbolism? Alienation? A metaphor for something similarly stupid and irrelevant? Nah... Just a perverse Hungarian director who probably believes that porn is artistic and belongs in mainstream movies. No wonder, of course: Hungary is the Metropolis of Europe's porn industry, so I guess the least we can expect in any modern Hungarian movie is erections, vaginas, pedophilia, bestiality, etc. Oh, come on, we have to be open-minded about such things! The next scene shows the graphic depiction of the butchering of a pig. You might have guessed it already (as I had): our anti-hero is sexually drawn towards all of that freshly slaughtered bloody dripping flesh, so later that evening he decides to lie on what's left of the porker and - but what else? - fantasizes/masturbates to various peasant women who so constantly provoke him with their large breasts and happy smiling faces. At first it isn't entirely clear whether he is actually having (gasp!) normal sex with a consenting adult from the same species and of the opposite sex, because it appears as if the fat middle-aged woman is really there - making her moves on him. But then it becomes clear that it's yet another fantasy, i.e. that this movie's director would never stoop so low as to show us too much of sex between mere two humans (That'd be too square, right? After all, the director feels compelled to compete with Greenaway, Miike, and the like.) The next morning, the fat woman's husband enters the peasant's shed and blasts his head off with one clean shot to the head. The head dissolves into bits of flying debris, some of it perhaps hitting the camera-lens. Not sure about that one. Either way, the director had already managed to fulfill his Extreme Sex&Violence Quota - only 20 minutes into the movie. From here on, any further filth is merely a bonus for the movie's drooling fans.And more filth there is. What follows is that the fat woman gives birth to a baby-boy who has a ha-ha-funny anomaly attached to his derrière: a pig's tail. Daddy doesn't seem to be too keen on having a semi-porker for a child, so he rushes to get a pair of pliers and cuts off the piggy-tail with boredom almost, as if he'd been doing that sort of thing for years.Cut to around 20 years later; the second story begins. There is a food-stuffing competition going on, in what seems to be a satire of Communist lust for sports glory. One of the morbidly obese competitors we easily recognize as the baby boy from the previous scene, on account of the remnants of a small pig-tail still bulging out just beneath his lower back. We're somewhere in the early or mid-60s. The second part mostly ignores sexual deviation, but there's still plenty of vomiting and retarded behaviour as to please even the most jaded fans of so-called "shock-cinema". As our half-piggy hero lies in bed, his fiancée's very hairy armpit hangs over him, dripping sweat - right onto his face. He licks it off, having obviously been sexually stimulated by it. Later on, there is more competitive food-munching, some brief doggy-style sex, etc. It's all very stylishly shot, but quite unfunny and mostly infantile.The third story features Half-Piggy, much older and by now weighing around two tons, looking distinctly like a Euro-trash version of Jabba The Hutt. He is immobile, spending his time in a dark, depressing flat where he stuffs three large cats with food, and reminisces of his food-stuffing glory days. He is taken care of by his disappointingly skinny son, a taxidermist. In his spare time Junior flirts unsuccessfully with female cashiers and makes plans for turning himself into a stuffed statue. The film fittingly ends with its most disgusting, extreme, and absurd scene in which Junior taxidermizes himself into oblivion. His empty head gets lopped off, the right arm is severed, and some time later he is discovered by one of his customers who then proceeds to display this "work of art" in some trendy museum. He gives a philosophical speech about Junior, and this soliloquy is supposed to be very very "deep" and "meaningful". The End.

I was privileged to watch this film days before its final run in Singapore at The Picturehouse. And what a treat it was. Taxidermia, from start to finish, is outrageous and carnal, but never vulgar in its approach and execution. The word "Taxidermia" in itself refers to the stuffing and preserving of living things, in a bid to achieve "temporary immortality".The cinematography of the film stays true to the different eras the three generations of men experienced individually. The bizarre, off-the-wall characteristics of the three underscore their hunger for the very same ambitions – to gain acceptance and fulfillment.The scurrilous and brutal imagery in the film are certainly not without meaning; this redeeming feature alone sets it apart from the far too common gross-out functions we've come to accept from bigger titles.Besides being blemished by the handful of niggling inconsistencies in its character portrayal and plot, my biggest beef with this film is that the representation of the three men is sometimes too distinct; you get a feeling that you're watching three separate films, mashed together into one. But of course, I'm nitpicking here.Taxidermia is a stellar effort that is definitely worth your money. The world has not seen enough of the brilliance that is György Pálfi. Just remember to leave all food at the door!