European Films

Bonnie and Clyde are alive and well as Hungarian pensioners in the Gábor Rohonyi comedy Konyec. Welding together a serious opening segment and two complementary love stories as well as all the action and humour that come with the territory, Rohonyi has confected a surprisingly endearing crowd-pleaser that provides not only plenty of laughs but also credible characters and a moving ending. Veteran actors Emil Keres and Teri Földi star as the pensioners who, once they get going, are hard to stop. Hungarian audiences will love this feature, with festival play and possible foreign pick-ups or remakes possible.

 

Konyec is the Russian word for "end", a significant word for the 81-year-old Hungarian Emil (Keres) who served the communists for 30 years but is now reduced to hiding from bailiffs and debt collectors in his cramped apartment. His wife, 69-year-old Hédi (Földi), is forced to give away her diamond earrings to settle a debt; "my last dignity", she calls them. The wear and tear of their long years together are expertly sketched in the film’s opening section, which telegraphs an amazing amount of information about the couple (separate beds and no sex for the last 15 years, but still her willingness to give up her "last dignity" to save his books) without force-feeding the audience. Rohonyi finds a natural rhythm here that is dense in information but also light to watch.

 

The earrings are the last drop for Emil, who decides to steal some petrol to get his communist-era car moving, which he uses together with a communist-era gun to stage a robbery at a local post office. It is the first robbery of his life, and he apologises for it as only a gentle old grandpa would: "Sorry, it is my first time as well," he says to the shrieking lady he keeps at gunpoint. From this point on, the film transforms from a portrait of the dire situation of two Hungarian elderly into a full-blown action comedy and adventure, which takes cues from many previous films -- Bonnie and Clyde being just one reference -- but which also finds its own voice to which the director carefully seems to have paid attention. The serious set-up pays off wonderfully because it makes the audience care for the characters.

 

Two important things are needed to get the film to full speed: the introduction of the quarrelling police couple (Judith Schell and Zoltán Schmied) who will try to solve the trail of crimes the couple leave behind and the reunion of Emil with his wife, who at first appears to be flabbergasted by his actions since she  learns about them from TV. Screenwriters Balázs Lovas and Zsolt Pozsgai collaborated for the first time on this screenplay but nevertheless neatly tie these two stories together, nimbly alternating and interweaving the two strands and highlighting their communal points without forcing the story into needless asides. A short  but poignant scene  between Schell and Földi in the latter part of the film illustrates their technique perfectly.

 

The film is also high on laughs, including a carefully choreographed and edited sequence of a robbery on a bank that has no one at the cash desks and a visit to the hideout of Don Juanito (a terrific cameo from Yugoslav actor Djoko Rosic), who has created a small Cuban haven on Hungarian soil that includes an enormous Patria o Muerte banner. Konyec also handles its ending extremely well, bowing both to the traditions of the genre as well as the need for an upbeat ending. Though the film will hardly change the course of film history, Konyec is hard to beat for a good night out at the cinema.