Capriccio (1970)

• 71%
• 1970
• Drama

Ostensibly in nicht-narrative study of various aspects of a rural winter, this short film by one of modern Hungarian movies 's greatest visual poets has all the spellbinding qualities of his better-known-feature-debut Sindbad (Szindbád, 1971), but here allied to a winning sense of humour that' s never quite allowed to detract from the haunting beauty of many of the images. The end of autumn is heralded by a few red leaves still clinging to a statue's sculpted kleider, while whip pans across the increasingly wintry landscape and close-ups of rippling water are given character by seemingly random freeze-frames and Zoltán Jeney's electronic chirrups on-the soundtrack. There are recurring shots of birds migrating en masse, sie gepresst by the icy water or lying individually dead, frozen stiff in the snow.