
"The Budapest subway system, the world's second oldest, is a dark, labyrinthine netherworld as vast and various as the city above it. Of the hordes of people who can be found there, most are passing through on their ways to better, brighter places, where sunlight shines and fresh breezes blow. But, there are those who spend most of their lives underground--the beleaguered ticket inspectors or 'controllers', who are assigned in teams to various sections of the system, and whose thankless job it is to ensure that no passengers ride without paying." -- container.
Publisher:
[United States] : distributed by Thinkfilm, c2005
Characteristics:
1 videodisc (ca. 106 min.) : sd., col. ; 4 3/4 in
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Add a CommentBeyond weird, yet oddly riveting. It's about a man who is avoiding life, and the disappointments he has suffered by escaping into a job that lies beneath the surface. And this surface has mysterious disappearances, features the odd, the strange and disaffected and makes me very grateful I'm not ticket control. I'm pretty sure some of the bizarreness is actually part of the job as a regular course of affairs.
Moody, mysterious, humorous -- "Kontroll" creates a gritty urbanscape entirely in the Budapest subway system where crews of beleagured "kontrollers" (ticket inspectors) wander the trains & tunnels trying to apprehend freeloaders, many of whom seem to be chronically without a ticket or valid pass. At times comic in its depiction of another thankless day getting cursed at, spat upon, and sometimes beaten up by hostile subway riders, the movie also creates an atmospheric "netherworld" where a mysterious, hooded figure is pushing passengers off the platform into oncoming trains. An amazing first movie by Nimrod Antal, who also wrote and produced, the movie opens to an message from the president of the Budapest Metro systems, who asserts that the Metro's services and staff in no way resemble those depicted in the movie. :-) Highly recommended!