France, Hungary 1999 - DCP - 100 minutes, in French and Hungarian with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Ildikó Enyedi

Producers: Ildikó Enyedi, Joël Farges, Elise Jalladeau, Péter Miskolczi, Jolán Árvai

Cast: Péter Andorai, Julie Delarme, Péter Halász, Hubert Koundé

Print Courtesy: National Film Institute of Hungary

Enyedi’s work often combines elements of the spiritual or magical with the much more everyday, and usually there’s humor (among other things) in those combinations and juxtapositions. That’s a governing principle in 1999’s Simon the Magician, in which a contemporary version of the Biblical figure Simon has a protracted battle of wits and powers with a fellow current sorcerer, leading to a challenge for each to be buried underground and then rise again. Mischievously witty and unexpectedly climactic, Simon the Magician is one of the many high points in Enyedi’s filmography, her last gift to the last century. —KE