Pál Adrienn by Ágnes Kocsis

A white hospital gown fills the screen. A pair of defeated eyes. During the nightshift, nothing goes better with the sound of dying hearts than a large bite of cake.

Pál Adrienn (Adrienn Pál), a tale of fleeing alienation, is Hungarian director Ágnes Kocsis’ second feature, competing in the Un Certain Regard section. For a palliative nurse, every soul is a numbered monitor and death is routine. A distant, small-minded husband increases her guilt over emotional overeating. Although young, Piroska is trapped in an overweight body, a depressing job, and a dull personal life. For such an empty heart, a new patient’s name triggering childhood memories is like a promise from above: Adrienn Pál used to be her best friend. As the search begins, each encounter with forgotten schoolmates scattered along different paths offers its own glimpse of Hungarian society.

Repetitive hospital interiors are beautifully-shot and uncannily magical. On the contrary, scenes outside of Piroska’s workplace offer a cold realism. Outlining a life which has terminal illness as its background is quite similar, both visually and conceptually, to Import/Export, an Austrian film nominated for the Palme d’Or in 2007. However, any comparison ends here: the stakes are not as high as in Ulrich Seidl’s politically-charged masterpiece. Although carefully constructed and balanced with fine irony, this character-driven film is more of an essay on loneliness than a compelling story.

By Andreea Dobre