On Body and Soul

"Is there a harsher juxtaposition than bucolic images of nature followed by bodies being slaughtered? Hungarian writer/director Ildiko Enyedi's intensely contemplative drama​ On Body and Soul, which has won a slew of awards including top prize at last year’s Sydney Film Festival, begins with beautiful icy-blue shots of deer in snowy wilderness, then violently changes tempo – venturing inside an abattoir in Budapest, where cows look dolefully into the lens. We discover those images of deer enter the minds of the film’s lead characters while they sleep. Will the abattoir symbolise the death of dreams? Or the difference, perhaps, between fantasy and meat hook reality?"

"A determinedly eccentric but intermittently startling misfit romance that marks a singular return to feature filmmaking for Hungarian writer-director Ildikó Enyedi after an 18-year gap."

"This offally appealing arthouse tale of elusive love in an abattoir is a prime-cut, for the strong-of-stomach."

"It's a slow, quiet and beautifully composed story about human connection, or more specifically, the difficulty in finding it."

"It's a haunting film, with the blood, the dreams and the deer, but never wilfully obscure. Just slightly off kilter. Like life."

"It's a love story and one of the most startling, original, and poised films of the year."

"Delicate psychological insight, a strong aesthetic signature and two affecting, restrained performances by Alexandra Borbély and Géza Morcsányi overcome any familiarity, as well as occasional hints of preciousness."

"The plot mechanism that links these ideas and images is, we'll just say, grossly misjudged."

"A rich and strange tale of thwarted sexuality that takes a tad too long to get to the point."