Faster Times in Hollyweird's New Boomtown

It's been two decades since a Hungarian film made it through to the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, but this year the "difficult" and "visionary" filmmaker Béla Tarr finally breaks the drought with A Londoni Ferfi ("The Man from London"). For the past couple of years, Hungarian films have been drawing awards like Hollywood films draw paying viewers, including eight gongs at the recent Houston Film Festival alone. And now a shot at the prize-of-all-prizes - for European filmmakers at least. Starring Tilda Swinton ("Orlando", "Chronicles of Narnia"), the film sounds like it had a conception as tortuous, tormented - and well, Hungarian - as any industry masochist could hope for. Filming was even halted for several months after one of the producers, Humbert Balsan, committed suicide. But it is from the furnace of suffering that Mr. Tarr is said to hammer out his best work.

Unfortunately, it seems that the furnace was not burning quite hot enough this time around, because it appears that A Londoni Ferfi pretty much belly-flopped at Cannes. According to a flash report from Tuesday's screening by Index.hu, upwards of 200 people bolted the 2,000-seat Debussy theater before the two-and-a-quarter hour film was over, and there were more whistles and boos than claps at the end. Some French and British critics cornered by Index spoke of the movie's "amazingly well-composed camera movements" and "beautiful cinematography," but both agreed the film did not create a whole work. (Nem állt össze.) Then again, we did say that Tarr likes to suffer, so maybe he's actually happy.

Speaking of bloodbaths, the battle to bring the definitive film about the "Blood Countess" to the screen just got that bit more gruesome. In case you didn't know, Erzsébet Báthory was a 16th century Hungarian Countess who was said to bathe in the blood of virgins in a quest for eternal youth. The story is so good that numerous filmmakers in and outside of the region have tried to put together a film about the old beast, including yours truly. There is even a handy Wikipedia guide to the best-known of the various film projects, just so Báthory fans can keep up with things.

Now, finally, it looks like someone has crossed the finish line. The veteran (i.e., old) Slovak director Jakub Jakubisko has just completed "Báthory - A Love Story." Advance screenings suggest that Jakubisko has chosen to present the myth of the "Beast of Cachtice" as a feminist tract, eschewing the ultra-violence you might (quite reasonably) expect. According to my sources in the Báthory underground, the lack of the savagery, perversity and gore which made the Blood Countess so famous has ruined the appetite of the US distributors who hold the key to its cinematic success.

Which opens the door again for Báthory purists like the French actress and muse (for some) Julie Delpy, who was previously tipped to be most likely to get a Báthory film to market first. And may the best Blood Countess win!

In other news from the Middle Ages, a second season of the highly successful new BBC adaptation of "Robin Hood" can't seem to shake off the jinx from the first, which was also filmed in Hungary. After fortuitously recovering master tapes stolen in 2006, BBC producers must have assumed that they were through the worst of it. But there is despair tonight in Sherwood Forest, and in the corridors of White City (Beeb HQ). For poor young Jonas Armstrong, the Irish actor playing Robin of Loxley has broken his foot on Hungarian soil, fracturing a fifth metatarsal, just as work started on production of season two. The Daily Mail reports that the injury was sustained during a rehearsal for a fight scene. A BBC spokesperson denies this was the case, but then, I suppose they would, wouldn't they?

But the big news around town in the film biz this week - is all the news around town. Shooting season in Hungary for 2007 is only just getting underway but already there's a buzz in the air. Partly in thanks to the 20% tax break being offered producers, massive soundstages have been built to accommodate all this activity. They've already been dancing on twinkle toes at Stern Film Studios this spring with the production of the "Nutcracker Suite." And over at the new-as-a-pin Korda studios - boasting the largest underwater soundstages in Europe - they will start shooting "Hellboy2" any day now. Most of it probably won't end up at Cannes, but, as Béla Tarr can tell you, compared to Budapest, life there is a real beach.

For more from Sasha Tane, visit the homepage of Accent on Film.