Delta

Halfway through the first shooting cycle of Delta, the lead actor Lajos Bertok, to whom the film is dedicated, died. It was then the violinist Félix Lajkó, responsible for the gripping music in Delta, who managed to carry the film convincingly, despite having no prior acting experience. Delta is set in the overwhelming, un-manicured nature of a Danube Delta. Here, after many years away, Mihai, the son of the local landlady, returns planning to stay for good. On the bank of the River Danube he builds his own house. His half-sister Fauna, played by Orsi Toth and well-known from earlier work by Mundruczó, meets in her half-brother the only fellow spirit in this settlement deserted by God and all men. When she decides to live with him, her stepfather takes it out on her, but this doesn't stop her. With Delta, Mundruczó builds a scintillating and extremely charged story with sparse dialogue in which the truth is only slowly revealed. Freely derived from Hamlet and Elektra, Delta tells the story of two lovers who maintain their own sexual freedom, convinced of their integrity. In the isolated peasant communities surrounded by water, there is no room for this. There is a continual threat of a tragic ending, one that is only revealed by the director as a cruel turn of fate after the initial, misleading overture between the lovers and the community. (LC)