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PARADISE LOST

Ferenc Moldoványi: Another Planet

The new work by Ferenc Moldoványi who has also directed “Children, Kosovo 2000”, presented and awarded at several festivals, is also about the lives of children and it is not only a large-scale enterprise but at the same time a film with a global message and a great-impact film essay. The film follows the lives and hardships of exploited, enslaved and worked to the extreme children, seven lives altogether, on three continents (South America, Africa, South-East Asia) in four countries (Ecuador, Mexico, Congo and Cambodia).

The little cigarette and chewing-gum vendor girl in Ecuador, the shoeshine boy sharing the same fate, the street urchin in Congo, the child-prostitute, the child-soldiers, the painfully young workers in a brick factory in Cambodia and those earning a dollar per day by sifting the rubbish on a huge dump all depicted by Ferenc Moldoványi are at times much rougher and harrowing than some investigative reportage (it is shocking for example when the underage African prostitute gives an account of how she was raped by four policemen with total apathy on her face and in her voice but it is equally chilling to listen to the account of child-soldiers in Congo telling about killing and raping of women).

The filmmaker however goes well beyond mere depiction and places the lives of his child characters into a much higher context moulding them to convey a global and so to say cosmic message. The most important means of achieving this, besides Tibor Máthé’s images and Tibor Szemző’s music, is the fictional framing story, in which the documentary sequences are inlayed. At the very beginning of “Another Planet” we can see the wise magician of a North American Indian tribe (the Tarahumaras) together with a baby girl and her mother in a wonderfully beautiful landscape. We return to this idyllic and paradisical situation several times during the film.

In this respect the film recalls the French nature film titled “Genesis” (in which an old African magician tells the story of the birth of living creatures on the Earth) on the other hand the fictional parts of the work are in an obvious and extremely dramatic juxtaposition with the shocking and moving documentary dramas. It may also come to the mind and needs to be contemplated that all the horrors seen are only visions, or nightmares of the little girl and shaman. The opposition of two worlds, Nature and Civilization is expressed in the double reference of the title: Another Planet may mean that another , happier more idealistic world does exist beyond the misery and exploitation but it may also refer to this 21st century Planet with its enslaved children, which is indeed another planet but not ours because it is absolutely impossible to identify with it.

There is however, a passage and even a link between these two markedly different worlds: it is the Tarahumaras (and their shaman with his magical powers) living in unspoiled, untouched and ancestral nature – the ancestral and magical trait lives on hidden in the children living in a destructive civilization on the brink of destruction itself. The children talking about misery, exploitation and enslavement also mention their dreams as if by chance (in which apocalyptic visions, hell itself, ancient superstitions appear as well as biblical elements) or they talk about being accused of witchcraft (the street urchins in Congo end up living in the street because their family brands them as “child witches” and chases them from home). Merveille the child-prostitute’s name means miracle – see the interview with Ferenc Moldoványi in the article of film.hu – moreover Luz’s, the little street vendor girl’s, name means light.

Presuming that we agree that films applying the power of montage, rhythm and music in their sequences of documentary images achieve a higher level of filmic art - for example Godfrey Reggio’s qatsi trilogy (Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Naqoyqatsi), Baraka or Bodysong - and we call these film-poetry or image-poetry then by the same token applying a definitely unusual if not unique method we can surely call “Another Planet” a film-essay, where the stark and naked presentation of reality and the ambition of achieving an artistic effect are both employed and required.

Why exactly children? It is not the first time that Ferenc Moldoványi has worked with children (see the above mentioned documentary, “Children, Kosovo 2000” ) but this time the young ones, besides representing their own person and story, seem to gain, if possible, some further significance and meaning as their personal fate becomes symbolic. As they are exploited and abused in spite of their innocence they become the absolute representation of total subjection. “ One can grasp the essence of defencelessness through the lives of these children.” – the director commented, following the screening of his film, who summing it all up wishes to send out a global message about the moral crisis of our Planet.

The lives of these children and what they represent is fiercely shocking, exasperating leaving one bitter and disillusioned. It is a fact that “the income of the two richest men in the world equals the GDP of more than 40 countries in the world or that out of the 6 billion people living on our Planet 3 billion subsist on less than 1 USD per day..” Not all is lost however until films like that of Ferenc Moldoványi’s are made, maybe...

Judit Vajda

39th HUNGARIAN FILMWEEK – Report of the 4th Day

“Another Planet” is a very special film: Director Ferenc Moldoványi embarked on a large-scale enterprise, which involved filming in four countries (Ecuador, Mexico, Congo, Cambodia) on three continents (South America, Africa, South East Asia) to shoot a documentary feature about exploited, enslaved children, living a life of subjugation (child labourers, child prostitutes and child soldiers). The sequences documenting shocking and tragic lives have a fictional frame and are merged to send out a global message about the present state of our Planet. 

39th HUNGARIAN FILMWEEK –
Opposites – Overnight, Another Planet

This year we have seen an outstanding number of films at the Film week already distributed in cinemas. In spite of this one has managed to avoid some of them so far. An example is Ferenc Török’s super co-production “Overnight”, which was followed by Ferenc Moldoványi’s “Another Planet” during the press-screening line-up. The first work undermines or faith in the material world and the second does the same, however what a difference … 

“Overnight” is not a new film, nevertheless browsing the Film week catalogue I decided that it won’t do any harm if I go and see these two films one after the other, arranged thus by the whim of the Film week though the readers of Kultissimo could read a detailed analysis of the film around the time of the premiere. As a matter of fact, I believe I made a good decision. Ferenc Török’s film addresses the matter from an easier angle while Ferenc Moldoványi spits it all into our face following many years of work: i.e. hard times are coming. Let us just say that if for those in their thirties - sporting a discrete paunch, some compulsions, slight twitch in the eyes and high blood pressure – nothing else matters but material security, having a Mont Blanc pen and tossing tens and hundreds of thousands of Euros here and there profitably, well then “Another Planet” was made in vain. There is no point in seeing the teenage African prostitute the Ecuadorian boy shining shoes for pittance in front of the church, the tears are for nothing on the face of Cambodian little girls who have raked the rubbish dump for years, the middle classes, as suggested by Ferenc Török, do not give a damn. Or what is even worse, they do not even know about all this as they are busy making money.

It would be really easy to leave it at that, but the fact remains that on film has an effect on the other – looking at things from the angle of an army of little soldier boys exercising in slippers in the eradicated rainforests of Kenya the story of “Overnight”, based on financial gain using different time-zones between India and Hungary, seems rather weak. All in all -it is especially annoying that most of the troupe of József Katona Theatre and the artists of Krétakör are practically used as “elements of the set”. Nagy Zsolt’s appearance in the film is wasted on approximately three scenes where he is handcuffed to a large aerial and is suffering from the heat. Pity… At the same time, the imagery of the film is at its purest and most composed among all of Ferenc Török’s movies: the sequences in India are pleasing to the eye and some camera angles presents us with images to contemplate – it is true though that these pleasant moments are caused mostly by environments void of people.

Ferenc Moldoványi’s film is a strange mixture of composed images, scenes and documentary sequences. For some reason though, they all become one coherent entity despite of its entanglement. The viewer cannot be at peace, not for a second, anxiety mounts, the fist clenches and one feels like taking the road to the Andes far away from the Western civilization where one only needs to worry whether one finds the right way back to the village or get lost. And if one should get lost one might worry that the vacuum of the Western world might suck one in.

Orsolya Kónya

FERENC MOLDOVÁNYI – ANOTHER PLANET

Our brief conversation following the screening of “Another Planet” made it clear that the aim of the director was to take his film to a much higher level of interpretation than that of the newsreels and reportages dealing with global problems. Mission fulfilled. “Another Planet” is similar to Koyaanisqatsi, Baraka and Iska’s Journey all rolled into one regarding its theme and effect. It is similar to the first two in respect of the imagery of nature sequences and presenting global problems and it is akin to the third one because of the kind of children’s lives it presents, the kind which we do not really want to know about.

Moldoványi’s film like Alföldi’s balances between two genres, that is between documentary and fiction film. The difference between the balancing of the two films is that Moldoványi does it without any shakiness. His film documents with simplicity recording reality in wonderfully photographed images possessing extremely strong atmosphere. There is no extra commentary. The crew travelled various continents but the viewer only vaguely knows where. Besides Tibor Szemző’s ethereal music lending a surreal quality to the film, it is this geographical uncertainty, as we do not exactly know where we are, which tilts the genre of “Another Planet” rather towards the fictional.

Moldoványi’s film is a chain of episodes. Some are shorter the others longer but all linked by the misery and defencelessness of their child characters. It also needs to be pointed out that all the children in the film are underage and their lives are very similar: they are struggling to stay alive and also for the lives of their brothers and sisters, their family, and they will not recoil from the most humiliating or inhumane means to do that. Moreover, they consider it natural and accept their fate. In a better case they sell sweets in the street and in a worse they sell their bodies from the age of eight or ten and show a condom if asked for their id. You will see little boys doing the washing up in the market, hauling bricks, clean shoes in the street but also serving in the army. There is a lump in the throat when seeing these images but apart from watching the children doing their daily activities they are also asked about their dreams. Well, it all becomes clear at this point. A little girl, of about five years of age, for example cries desperately talking about her fear to go home as she has not collected enough metal and plastic on the rubbish dump that day.

Ferenc Moldoványi’s work belongs to the category of important films. It is the kind of work that is important both locally and globally and it talks clearly to all the people on our Planet crossing all cultural borders. It will not draw conclusions instead of the viewer and it will not judge. It “only” shows.

Nóra Szabó

Roads in heaven and Angels from Hell

Ferenc Moldoványi reflects on the moral decline and nadir, our hell on Earth in his shocking, interactive documentary-fiction film titled “Another Planet” with Tibor Máthé’s stirringly beautiful images. There is something eerily similar in the lives of the children in four different regions of the world, child-slavery, child prostitution, aberrations legally tolerated, the children in Africa forced to commit murders in wars like so many black angels accusing the world, which has no mercy for innocent babes, the best beloved of Jesus, either. Tibor Szemző’s magical music gives good emphasis to what the bible says: woe betide the one who hurts any one of these babes!

Zoltán Pósa