Capriccio

Ostensibly a nonnarrative study of various aspects of a rural winter this short film by one of modern Hungarian cinemas greatest visual poets has all the spellbinding qualities of his betterknown feature debut Sindbad Szindbád 1971 but here allied to a winning sense of humour thats 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 statues sculpted robes while whip pans across the increasingly wintry landscape and closeups of rippling water are given character by seemingly random freezeframes and Zoltán Jeneys electronic chirrups on the soundtrack There are recurring shots of birds migrating en masse huddled by the icy water or lying individually dead frozen stiff in the snow So far Capriccio has been a reasonably generic mood piece but then the snowmen arrive