Édes Emma, drága Böbe - vázlatok, aktok (1992)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

István Szabó

Writers:

István Szabó (writer)
Andrea Vészits (writer)

Release Date:

20 March 1992 (Hungary)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Turkish Bath | Shower Scene | Adultery | Teaching | Nightmare

Awards:

3 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Johanna ter Steege	...	Emma
Enikö Börcsök	...	Böbe
Péter Andorai	...	Stefanics - Igazgató
Éva Kerekes	...	Szundi
Ildikó Bánsági	...	Emma (voice)
Irma Patkós	...	Hermina néni
Erzsi Pásztor	...	Rózsa néni
Hédi Temessy	...	Mária néni
Irén Bódis	...	Emma anyja
Erzsi Gaál	...	Raktárosnõ
Zoltán Mucsi	...	Szilárd, a rajztanár
Tamás Jordán	...	Szaglár százados
Gábor Máté	...	ügyeletes tiszt
Olivér Csendes
Attila Kaszás

Also Known As:

Dear Emma, Sweet Böbe
Sweet Emma, Dear Boebe - Sketches, Nudes

Runtime:

Spain:90 min | Sweden:81 min

Country:

Hungary

Language:

Hungarian

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

South Korea:18 | Australia:M | Finland:K-14 | Spain:18 | Sweden:11 | UK:18

Company:

Mafilm Audio Kft.

Quirky and disjointed

A very quirky and disjointed narrative, mainly about an underpaid country girl working as a schoolteacher (Emma, stunningly and disturbingly played by Johanna Ter Steege, a Dutch actress, whose dialogue was clearly post-dubbed into Hungarian), with her roommate (Bobe) occasionally getting a look-in. There's gratuitous nudity and sex aplenty, as we see Emma take her morning shower (in a really dingy shower block), awoken to hear/see her roommate loudly having sex with a never-shown man, and Bobe joining a group of other women (all equally underpaid) auditioning as extras for a movie director's Turkish Bath scene. About eight women are shown, at lightning-fast pace, individually posed in the nude, holding up numbers. (Strangely, we do not see either Emma or Bobe undress, nor is this sequence ever even mentioned again ! ) And meeting up with a street artist at a disco, whom she'd met previously, and following him up to his room with no persuasion.

There's also some very disturbing stuff; such as Emma's recurring nightmare, of helplessly rolling down a gravelly hill, naked and screaming; Emma's confusing treatment at the hands of her much-older married lover (the headmaster); and her reaction the way she is interrogated after Bobe's (probably wrongful) arrest for prostituion and possession of foreign currency.