MY TWENTIETH CENTURY Movie Review

Az en XX. Szazadom

This bracingly intelligent and often overlooked gem is a charming and perceptive journey through the early 1900s.Twins Dora and Lili are separated in early childhood. They reunite as grown (very different) women traveling on the Orient Express after they both (unknowingly) have sex with the same man. Dora is coquettish and seductive; Lili is a radical, toting her own bombs (those little round ones that movie and cartoon anarchists always carry). When the two sisters come together, they lose their respective dependence on men and politics, and grasp at true independence. Ildiko Enyedi's funny and poignant look at human progress—or lack thereof—as opposed to scientific advancements is an original and bewitching Hungarian Ragtime, jump-started by Dorotha Segda's triple role as Dora, Lili, and their mother. The black-and-white cinematography is a gracious and witty enhancement to the fairy-tale atmosphere.

NEXT STOP … The Fireman's Ball, My Sweet Little Village, Underground

1990 104m/B HU CA Dortha Segda, Oleg Jankowsky, Peter Andorai, Gabor Mate, Paulus Manker, Laszlo Vidovszky; D: Ildiko Enyedi; W: Ildiko Enyedi. VHS FXL