Hukkle

In an idyllic Hungarian village, life seems to potter on. Old men play jeu de boules in the village square, young ladies work as seamstresses in a factory, a shepherd girl keeps her sheep. A little way off, the farmer harvests his corn that is turned into flour, which in turn disappears in the dough for the dumplings that an old woman makes for her family. In other words, everything is as it should be. Yet something is wrong in this paradise on earth. Subtle clues slowly reveal a plot to commit a crime.Hukkle is a very original film that is not easy to pin a label on. Twin Peaks with a trace of Bert Haanstra in a freethinking variation on Microcosmos could be the start of a description. Rustic images of simple country life are juxtaposed without problem with advanced special effects and surprising camera angles. In addition, not a single word is spoken throughout the whole film. Yet the soundtrack is one of the most important elements in the film, because what we do not hear in the dialogues, becomes clear through the meticulous and rhythmic editing of the sounds: growing grass, a pig snorting, the rattling spokes of the postman’s bicycle and an old man with hiccoughs, or `hukkle’ an onomatopoeia for hiccoughing.