Katalin Varga (2009)

In the beautiful, otherworldly Carpathian Mountains a woman is traveling with a small boy in a horse and cart, looking to punish those who once abused her. For years, Katalin has been ... See full summary »

Director:

Peter Strickland

Writer:

Peter Strickland (screenplay)

Stars:

Hilda Péter, Norbert Tankó, László Mátray

14 wins & 16 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview:
Hilda Péter	...	Katalin Varga
Norbert Tankó	...	Orbán Varga
László Mátray	...	Zsigmond Varga
Roberto Giacomello	...	Gergely
Tibor Pálffy	...	Antal Borlan (as Tibor Pálfy)
Melinda Kántor	...	Etelka Borlan
Sebastian Marina	...	Gergely's Brother-in-Law
Attila Kozma	...	Accomplice
Enikö Szabó	...	Zsuzsa
Zsolt Páll	...	Poultry Man
Florin Vidamski	...	Husband
Fatma Mohamed	...	Wife
Andrea Gavriliu	...	LA Girl
Raluca Sava	...	Sunflower
Szilvia Majláth	...	Singing Girl

Storyline

In the beautiful, otherworldly Carpathian Mountains a woman is traveling with a small boy in a horse and cart, looking to punish those who once abused her. For years, Katalin has been keeping a terrible secret. Hitchhiking with two men, she was brutally raped in the woods. Although she has kept silent about what happened, she has not forgotten, and her son Órban serves as a living reminder. When her village discovers her secret, Katalin's husband rejects her. With nothing to lose, she is free to seek revenge on the perpetrators. As she puts human faces to horrible acts, she is forced to consider that morality might not be as black and white as she had imagined.

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Plot Keywords:

woods | revenge | carpathian mountains | horse | folk tale | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

M/12

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [France]

Country:

Romania UK

Language:

Hungarian Romanian

Release Date:

16 December 2010 (Portugal)

Also Known As:

Katalin Varga

Filming Locations:

Transylvania, Romania

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$28,399

Company Credits

Production Co:

Libra Film, Ross Sanders Production International, Romanian National Center for Cinematography

Technical Specs

Runtime:

82 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was shot in Romania in July 2006 for around £25,000 with a small crew of 11 people (including transport and catering). Strickland paid everyone on the 17-days-shoot himself, apart from the focus-puller, who agreed to work for free. The whole crew and the actors lived together in an empty house in a small village in the Carpathian Mountains. After the shoot Strickland ran out of money while editing. He approached many UK production companies, but the reaction was always negative because an obscure film by an unknown director, not even in the English language, seemed to put off all UK investors. Only two Romanian producers, Oana Giurgiu and Tudor Giurgiu, paid attention. They saw Strickland's rough cut and came on board as co-producers, providing the funds to make a proper sound-mix and a blow-up from the Super-16mm negatives to 35mm. It was then invited and shown in competition at the '59th Berlin International Film Festival' in 2009 and won the 'Outstanding Artistic Contribution' award for the creative sound design. Without the Romanian producers, the film would never have been properly finished.

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Soundtracks

Capreolus capreolus
Recorded by Dr Alan Burbidge

User Reviews

Powerful fable

Peter Strickland's debut movie Katalin Varga reminds me very much of another recent British film, Asif Kapadia's 2007 effort Far North, which is also a folk horror story about an outcast and her child. Stickland uses the dank forest of Romania instead of the perilous ice flows of the north, but the movies are birds of a feather, low budget movies intended to tap primal energies.

Children run away from Katalin Varga, a darkly pretty woman with live-wire eyes, who's altogether too spirited to remain unmolested in the time-capsuled world with which the movie presents te viewer. Folk have mobile phones, but Katalin still travels by horse-drawn cart, and men still make hay in the fields with pitchforks. Gossip in Katalin's village is poisonous enough to make Clouzot's vision in Le Corbeau appear positively made of marshmallow. Following the repurcussions of gossip regarding Katalin's past, she travels with her child into an apparently infrastructure-less hinterland on a dark mission, like black lightning.

It's no surprise to find, following shot after shot of foreboding nature scenes, that this is a tragedy, in a cul-de-sac structure similar to Monte Hellman's brilliant 1965 movie Ride in the Whirlwind.

It's a brutal movie, in structure rather than in screen violence, which there is remarkably little of, and which is generally obscured in incoherence when it occurs. It's almost senseless and left me with a directionless primitive anger.