Egon & Dönci |
Hungary • 2007 • 75m •
Egon and Dönci are two lonely inhabitants on a distant solar-system's tiny planetary. Egon is an amateur ''space-exploratory'' trying to seem very moderate, but his deeds are dogged by constant ill fortune cased mostly by his fumbler cat, Dönci. The film puts on the two figures' comic conflicts, vicissitudes, as they get into all kinds of staggering adventures while exploring the sensible existence far away from earth. They live through every situation in a peculiar way. Egon and Dönci never talk. They communicate with each other and with the viewer in the most simple way - with childlike mimicry, one syllable sounds, gestures - therefore they are not bantered to any determined language. In this way they are understood by the youngest age-group as well as the elder on any part of the Earth. Last, but not least the film's aim is to familiarize the viewer with the planets of our solar-system, the main curiosities of the outer space, it's characteristics and regularities with the intention to educate.
  • Directed by: Ádám Magyar. • Starring: colspan="3" align="left">Produced by, ...., colspan="4">. • Music by: Gábor Balázs, Zsolt Macsinka, Péter Sohajda. |
Review:
Although the lack of dialogue makes the film unique, it is also the film's biggest problem. This is because, in place of spoken words, the characters spew out a multitude of non-verbal noises, and they do it constantly. There is scarcely a moment where the characters aren't hemming, hawing, oohing, ahhing, gasping, squeaking, mumbling, chuckling, grunting, gurgling, or making other unnecessary, unintelligible noises. This gets irritating VERY fast.
The story, such as there is, involves the titular Egon and Donci finding a crashed spacecraft in their backyard and building their own rocket so they can visit the planet it came from. Even with the film's slight running time of seventy-five minutes, it feels like it takes forever for them to get there, and after the confusing beginning, we are treated to seemingly endless scenes of the two characters having minor misadventures in their spaceship and engaging in unfunny slapstick. In the end, the discovery the main characters make on the new planet is so underwhelming, and the ending is so vague, that I was left completely unaware of what the film's point was supposed to be.
That being said, it's obvious that a great deal of work went into the design of the film, and most of the environments are beautifully rendered, with fantastic color. In addition, some of the music is moderately catchy, and the film's best moments come when the characters stop babbling and the music and visuals take over.
Overall, however, I think the one word that can sum up the experience of watching this film is "tedious." The gibberish dialogue is annoying, the story is barely understandable, the characters have no memorable qualities, the humor is completely flat, and the film as a whole is curiously lacking in the charm that is so abundant in Hungary's earlier animated productions. If you like obscure animated films, my suggestion would be to sit back and enjoy some of the brilliant films that the Panonia studio produced in the 1980s, and skip this.
Review by lagrammairienne from the Internet Movie Database.
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