I saw this movie when it won honorable mention at the Hungarian Film Year Review, the year the judges refused to award any film. I think this one knocked them off their chairs. I was literally 'impressed'. Not just because it was the coolest film I'd ever worked on but because the final cut was one helluva ride (we'd shot it for 70 minutes and it came out 38 in the end).
You must focus to watch this film, and there will probably be nobody around who could punch you in the jaw to provide you with the right combination of adrenaline and numbness to prepare you for the inside of the mind of ROARSCH. After the whack psycho-glyphs in the intro animation, for the first ten minutes, it feels like you're in a film trailer that won't quit. Incredible sketches of uniquely-bizarre characters meander through the furious editing like a relentless flashback speaking things that scare you to consider them, like a witchdoctor raving your high school report card. You will know what that kind of desperate laugh means when you feel it trying to escape your throat. REMEMBER:This film is not a dream sequence, this is somebody's reality. If you could take a breath, you might utter something futile like "WHATDA!?", there in the theatre but this psychotic frenzy of a confessional controls your breathing. Like a wild pitch to the sternum at 24 fps.
If you're still hanging on after the first couple scolding segue-ways by the gleefully twisted Capt. Weaver character, you start to feel for his predicament as well as his subject's. What the hell could this private Roarsch character be trying to prove? and to whom? Is there any human being in this film who could understand him? Do I WANT to understand him?
I can only describe this movie as the quintessence of something like 'black camp'. As merciless as it is true. This absurd story of a corrupt soldier is as poignant today as it was in 1999. Turn off the lights, flick on the player and get ready to meet your faker.
