This is a short documentary about a very strange period in Hungary between WWI and WWII. At first, you really don't know what the film is about and are intrigued. You know that a certain part of the country has been dying a slow death--with people moving away from Nagyrev for decades. The people being interviewed talk about how it used to be a nice place to live but now they can't get anyone to buy their homes if they, too, wanted to leave. This, combined with talk of poisonings, convinced me that this town must have been a place destroyed by industrial poisoning of the water or land. However, the film was not about this at all and I was taken by surprise. Yes, people were poisoned but it turns out the whole thing was intentional! It seemed that the husbands were being lazy and brutal so instead of divorces (which were morally wrong), the ladies decided to poison the men instead!! It seems that this became a rather popular pastime in this and surrounding villages! This story is told through interviews with a few surviving people who were there when the poisonings occurred. However, most interviewed must have learned about the poisonings from family members since it happened so very long ago. Additionally, the film seemed to take a very neutral position on the incidents--or perhaps excusing it in a way. The women interviewed some times talked as if the murders were somewhat justified and you could detect a certain hostility towards men in a few of the interviews. This wasn't a totally bad thing--showing this undercurrent of acceptance and condoning of the killings was creepy but also made for a better and more shocking film. I just hope this film isn't adored by ardently anti-male viewers who might see this as a strongly pro-feminist film--which it should not be.
Fascinating though occasionally slow and disjoint, this is a documentary well worth seeing--just don't get any ideas!!
Fascinating though occasionally slow and disjoint, this is a documentary well worth seeing--just don't get any ideas!!