No Man’s Land
Romania, 1979
27 min.
- Synopsis
- Curatorial presentation
No Man’s Land is symbolically embodied by the forest that at first gives the impression of a young man’s idyllic refuge from urban alienation. Boundless, the protagonist cathartically culminates in mystical restitution of the self to nature, to finally confront ecstasy with wildness, and visceral impulse with the ultimate accident.
Jenő Márton and Gábor Nagy, who were photo amateurs during their days as students in Cluj, made several short films together, all of them financed by the editorial office of a Hungarian newspaper in Bucharest – amongst them, No Man’s Land (1979). With a particular sort of visual violence, the film, which regards the strange memories of a random young man, comes across as fascinating precisely because of its instability, out-of-focus shots and dizzyingly unequal lengths, sudden zooms and true, living footage shot between people on the street and in busses, agitating, giving the impression of a hidden camera. This no man’s land is symbolically engendered by the forest that, at the beginning of the film, gives the impression of being the idyllic refuge of this young man faced with urban alienation. Unbounded, the protagonist culminates cathartically in a mystical restitution of the self to nature, to finally confront ecstasy with savagery, visceral impulse with supreme accident. (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2022)
