“It’s a mystery to me
the game commences”
Dire Straits – “private investigation”
Another Friday the 13th rolls around, time again to look at some baaad luck, double-matinee offerings from foreign parts.
Here we have two works of fiction, inspired by the same (mostly true) story, and yet they couldn’t be more different. The song at the heart of both stories has a haunting quality, and provides a very intriguing starting point for these mysteries.
The piece.
In 1930s Paris, a Hungarian songwriter named Rezső Seres composed a song entitled “the end of the world”.
Without speculating as to Seres’ inspiration, it was widely regarded as a downer. A downer of such proportions that despite various interpretations and growing popularity, the song was blamed for causing several suicides.
Quite possibly an unfortunate coincidence with historical events, the piece nevertheless became ever more popular and generated a number of urban legends, perhaps especially after being dubbed “the Hungarian suicide song” by the press.
One fact apparently not in dispute is that the BBC even banned the 1941 Billie Holiday version of “Gloomy Sunday” until 1982.
As to the composer, Rezső Seres jumped out of a window in 1968, survived the fall and later used a wire to strangle himself to death. Again, current events may have had more to do with his death than the song, but there lies the mystery…
The films.
“Gloomy Sunday” – (1999, Germany/Hungary, 112 mns – NR)
‘Ein Lied von Liebe und Tod’, the original title, means ‘a song of love and death’. Based on a novel by Nick Barkow, “gloomy Sunday” takes place in Budapest as WWII is soon to erupt and centers around Jewish restaurant owner László Szabo (Joachim Krol) and his lover Ilona (Erika Marozsán). László and Ilona have an open relationship, made even more remarkable since they manage the business together.
One of their regular customers is a young German businessman named Hans Wieck (Ben Becker), who is infatuated with Ilona in rather naïve, idolizing and dangerous ways. After holding auditions for someone to play the piano in their restaurant, László and Ilona hire András (Stefano Dionisi), a tall and dark type who composes a piece he calls ‘gloomy Sunday’ for Ilona’s birthday, cheerful fellow. On that occasion, Hans declares himself to her and asks her to marry him, which she refuses. He later tries to kill himself by jumping into the Danube, but is saved by László and returns to Germany with his teutonic pride between his legs.
The establishment and András’ haunting music grow in popularity as do his own feelings for Ilona. After she takes András as lover, László eventually accepts his place in this new triangle and even manages András’ blossoming musical career. As the three of them settle in their new living arrangement, the characters’ appeal grow, especially that of László, who truly loves Ilona and no matter what. So much so, that he and András become friends despite having to “share” her.
However, with popularity and recognition come reports tying András’ melancholy composition with several suicides. Growing distraught, András himself considers killing himself with poison but Ilona and László prevent this. Some time after Germany seizes Budapest, Hans reappears at the restaurant in uniform, along with another SS officer. Hans is responsible for the deportation of Jews from the area, and makes a good living at it by letting some flee in exchange for everything they own. The kind of man who later parlays himself as a hero for having saved some from the camps. Hans requests that András play “gloomy Sunday”, which András refuses. Ilona then breaks her promise to him by starting to sing the song in front of others.
WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! Skip down below the red jellybeans for part 2 if you don’t want to know how it ends.
András very reluctantly accompanies her at the piano, clearly doing violence to himself. And when the piece is over, he gets hold of Hans’ pistol and kills himself. Despite Hans’ assurances and promises to Ilona, László is eventually arrested. Playing on their distress, Hans gets Ilona to sleep with him in exchange for keeping László safe from deportation to a concentration camp. There is yet another surprise to be had some forty years after the war, at Szabo’s restaurant, where it is proven yet again that revenge is a dish best served cold.
“Gloomy Sunday” is an intriguing mystery, with very engaging characters made poignant by circumstances and the makings of a great ghost story, had the filmmakers chosen to go that way.
“Gloomy Sunday” gets five jellybeans.
“The Kovak box” – (2006, Spain/UK, 102 minutes – R)
David Norton (Timothy Hutton) is an American science-fiction writer flying to the island of Mallorca with his girlfriend Jane (Georgia McKenzie) for a conference and some R&R. David is at a point in his career where the faults he perceives in past works block his attempts at new ones. Once at they arrive at their hotel and begin to mingle with the conference attendees, David’s mood grows darker despite the sunny locale and Jane’s cheer.
After he delivers his speech, an older man approaches David asking him to sign a copy of his first published story.
The old man’s enthusiasm for what the writer now considers his most flawed novel rankles David who is less than gracious in his response. Only later does he find out that the man, Frank Kovak (David Kelly), was the organizer of the conference and not simply one of his many fans. That same evening, David finally does what he had been planning to do, asking Jane to marry him. After she accepts, David orders Champagne and goes to shower while her phone rings. As she answers, she is puzzled to hear the first few bars of the song “gloomy Sunday”.
Once David reappears to continue their conversation, Jane is no longer in the room. He walks over to the balcony as sounds of a commotion can be heard from below. Looking down, David sees Jane’s body on the ground. That same night, another passenger from David and Jane’s flight, Sylvia (Lucia Jimenez), receives the same call that Jane did and jumps out her hotel window but an awning breaks her fall. At the hospital, she watches David, sitting distraught by Jane’s bed where she lays dying. Sylvia, having no recollection of what happened and attracted by David’s grief, embarks with him on a dangerous journey to find the truth.
There are a couple things which add a fun factor to “the Kovak box“: for one, David Kelly got a kick out of playing a villain, and it’s cool that he was able to flesh out an evil old bastard before his passing earlier this year. For another it is the second time that I can remember Tim Hutton playing a fiction writer in a mystery/horror flick, as in George Romero’s 1993 adaptation of Stephen King’s “the dark half“.
And Hutton is a good fit for such stories and pacing, just a tick slower than the usual Hollywood action film, in which he can play on what some fans call his considerable emotional intelligence. Combine this with the sunny, cheerful setting of Mallorca and the score by Roque Baños and you have a wonderfully strange film. Dig a bit deeper and you’ll find that writer Jorge Guerricaechevarria, like Baños, is a frequent collaborator of Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia (one of our favorites here at JBoD).
Now here is where things peg the weirdo-meter into the red: After David decides to remain on Mallorca until he and Sylvia unravel the mystery of the growing number of suicides amongst the flight passengers, the puppet master reveals himself. Frank Kovak, the avowed fan of David’s fiction, turns out to be a scientist of Hungarian origin, whose life work mirrored the protagonist’s of David’s first novel. Indeed, after migrating to America just before WWII, Kovak wound up working for the CIA, devising programs and techniques of mind control using implants and a song as a trigger for the purpose of pushing targets to suicide.
As David refuses to join his biggest mad scientist fan on his quest for world domination, Kovak unleashes his few henchmen after him and Sylvia. Yes, that’s right: he has henchmen. Not many, no, and they’re really not very good, but one has to manage with what few hard looking types one can find in touristy spots like Mallorca, I imagine, a concept you can explore further with the hilarious Spanish comedy “Torrente 2: Mission in Marbella“.
Yes, at that point, it felt a bit like sitting at a bar next to some guy claiming to have been in Special Forces or the über-mysterious Black Ops, which they can’t talk about but do anyways. Uh-huh, uh-huh… Yeah… Hey man I gotta take a leak, and you disappear. Except “the Kovak box” deserves better, it is quite a bit of fun once you get past the ludicrous plot twists. Really.
“The Kovak box” gets four jellybeans.
Here are a few older reviews
We Are What We Are – Mexico 2010
Burke and Hare – UK 2010
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark – U.S./Australia/Mexico 2010
