MY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Hungary 1989 - DCP - 104 minutes, in Hungarian with English subtitles

Director, Screenplay: Ildikó Enyedi

Producers: Gábor Hánek, Andrejz Schwartz, Archy Dolder

Cast: Dorota Segda, Oleg Yanknkovsky, PéterAndorej

Print Courtesy: Kino Lorber

Enyedi snagged a much deserved Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival with this delightful first feature, a fully formed charmer that immediately announced her unique style and vision, her compassion for her characters, and her brilliantly witty yet utterly sincere approach to the world. Incandescently luminous in the black and white of this recent, gorgeous 4K restoration, My Twentieth Century is set on the eve of…yup, the 20th century. Twins Lili, an anarchist, and Dóra, a luxurious woman of what was then called “loose morals,” along with Mr. Z, who loves them as an entity, all reach the Hungarian border at the same time on board the Orient Express. Their story, told under the spell of Thomas Edison’s new inventions and discoveries that would truly ring out the old, attempts to do nothing less than reclaim a new era from a discredited old one that’s passing like a train in the night. —KE