“Just as the body is overcome by desire, so naturalism is overcome by surrealism…”–György Pálfi, director’s statement to Taxidermia
DIRECTED BY: György Pálfi
FEATURING: Csaba Czene, Gergö Trócsányi, Marc Bischoff
PLOT: Three short stories exploring three perverted generations, beginning with an extremely horny soldier in the private service of a lieutenant. His illegitimate child grows up to become a sport eater on the Hungarian national squad. The grandchild is a socially inept taxidermist who cares for his grumpy, obese father and his caged cats.
BACKGROUND:
- This was Pálfi’s second movie, after the just-as-weird but much gentler Hukkle.
- The first two segments of the film are based on short stories by writer Lajos Parti Nagy. Pálfi wrote the third episode himself.
- While working on Taxidermia, Pálfi won the 2004 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award, a $10,000 grant intended to be used to help the filmmaker create his next project. The grant includes a promise for Japanese distribution for the completed film (estimated value: $90,000).
INDELIBLE IMAGE: A man ejaculating a torrent of flame. (Don’t worry, you won’t have to watch long to catch this sight).
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: By itself, the middle section of the triptych of stories—concerning the competitive eater with Olympic dreams—would have made a decidedly odd movie. Flank that tale with stories of a WWII soldier with a hallucinatory libido and a taxidermist with demented aesthetics, stir with surrealism and garnish with grotesquerie, and you have one of the 366 Weirdest Movies of all time.
English language trailer for Taxidermia
COMMENTS: Taxidermia will almost break the needle on your “I never thought I’d see Continue reading 56. TAXIDERMIA (2006)