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You thought Seinfeld was about "nothing?" It’s the Iliad next to this obstinately uneventful first feature from Hungary’s György Pálfi. Most of the screen time is taken up with observing the expressionless denizens of a tiny Hungarian village going about their utterly dull daily business: sewing in a factory, walking a pig, cooking a meal, playing a Magyar version of lawn bowling. There’s sound, but whatever dialogue there is gets muffled, frustrating any attempt on your part to get insights into the characters. Two locals appear fairly often: a wrinkled old man with a chronic case of hiccups ("hukkle" means "hiccup" in Hungarian) that he accepts with bemusement, and an ever-worried-looking policeman, though what he’s fretting about is never clear. What's below the placid surface? Perhaps a David Lynchian coven of terrors, since several men (and a cat) drop dead before your eyes, and a grotesque corpse rots at the bottom of a lake. Is there a murderer loose? The finale brings the only words requiring translation: a wedding chorus sung to young newlyweds that urges the bride to feed poison to the groom. In Hungarian with English subtitles. (75 minutes)
BY GERALD PEARY
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