13/11/2024 - Good intentions based upon justice sometimes have unpredictable consequences, as Hungarian director Martin Boross’ first feature film cleverly reveals

"They need a goal, a mission, a shared secret, something to liberate them." When a small film team (a director, author and cameraman) awaiting funding for a project arrive from the capital to lead a creative summer workshop for young people in a remote village, we discover a banal environment, as well as a whole other planet inhabited by stone-broke artists from Budapest. "We have to get to know each other, trust is essential": but this getting-know-you process becomes increasingly complicated as they discover the reality of the location in question and the attitude they need to adopt. This is the seemingly ordinary yet nuanced subject-matter explored by Hungarian director Martin Boross in his first feature film, Raw Material, which was screened in the Eastern Visions section of the 25th Arras Film Festival.

"Don’t you think they know what’s good for them? And who they can trust." Hired by Mayor Gáspár (András Pál), the trio composed of Tamás (Zsolt Dér), Hanna (Blanka Mészáros) and Krisztián (Dániel Baki) kick off the workshop in good humour, shooting a zombie film parody and planning to throw a cucumber - a vegetable which is central to the local economy - into the mix. But when a young Roma boy leaves the training programme (forced to replace his sick mother as an agricultural worker) and tongues start to wag, especially that of teenager Zsani (Stefi Szabo), the secret workings of the village (which enjoys conspicuously high levels of employment) become clearer over the following two weeks: "Gáspár is everywhere. He terrifies everyone". What will our city-folk do with this information and with the unsavoury secrets which are slowly emerging? Despite Hanna’s warnings ("we’re not here to play Inspector Columbo"), Tamás insists on confronting Gáspár and unearthing the truth by shooting a documentary on the fly…

Built upon an intelligently constructed screenplay by the director in league with Fanni Szanto, Raw Material keeps its cards cannily hidden before assuming its full magnitude in a final section which totally reverses the film’s perspective by questioning the role of the artist. It’s a new angle whose seeds are wisely sowed in advance and which lends a refined political dimension to a film playing on Manichean appearances and rough representations with a view to delivering a subtle message about the potential impact of pictures.

Raw Material was produced by Filmfabriq in co-production with Stereo Akt.

(Translated from French)