You’d expect a movie about a female bodybuilder to play with audience preconceptions of gendered bodies – what is masculine, what is feminine, that sort of thing. Yes, Gentle does that to a degree, but far, far more, this unexpectedly haunting film truly gets under the skin, upending how we initially view the main character and her “freakish” body to reveal the multidimensional person within. Co-directors László Csuja (Blossom Valley) and Anna Nemes envision a Frankenstein and his monster parallel, with the “monster” only becoming a full person when she experiences genuine love, but while Mary Shelley’s creation is undone upon realizing his humanity, the protagonist of Gentle experiences a less destructive transformation, even though it may be too late to save her. Sensitively written and exceptionally well-played, Gentle should make international buyers sit up and take notice.
For those outside the world of competitive bodybuilding, there’s something unsettling about the massive bulk, conspicuous sinews and bulging veins all painted an artificial tan. With men, there’s a cartoonish element in seeing masculinity taken to its most exaggerated heights, but with women there’s something more disruptive in the way their pumped-up muscles replicate shapes usually associated with the opposite gender, incongruously covered in spangly bikinis. When Edina (the remarkable Eszter Csonka) first comes onscreen, prepping for a competition, viewers are likely to experience a sense of cognitive dissonance between her masculine mass and “feminine” accoutrements that have never seemed so absurd: long fake eyelashes, scads of blue eyeshadow and sparkly fingernails. Zágon Nagy’s camera moves slowly around, observing this strange object on display as Edina rotates her muscles into taut poses and grimaces in concentration, superbly accompanied by Kata Kozma’s song “All I Wanted.” It’s frankly hard to see her as anything other than unnatural, which is exactly what Csuja and Nemes rely upon because they know it makes it even more powerful to reveal the person beneath the conspicuously displayed exterior.
Edina wins the competition which opens the door to the world championship, the ultimate goal for her boyfriend and trainer Ádám (György Turós), a former bodybuilder himself who keeps her on a punishing regimen of training, pills, supplements and food denial. It all requires a fair amount of money, which they don’t have; his ex (Viktória Szorcsik) refuses to chip in, and he’s a flop when he tries out pole-dancing (the scene could have been excruciating but the directors perceptively convey his humiliation without rubbing it in). He says he’ll find the dough, but Edina can’t bear seeing him so stressed so she gets in touch with Evelyn (Éva Kerekes), a madam specializing in certain kinks, who assures her she can earn good money, no penetration necessary.
Until now Edina’s been completely under Ádám’s spell: he’s no malevolent Svengali but he’s not a guy who expresses emotion or thinks about what might be going on in his girlfriend’s heart. Her goal is to please him, and if that means popping steroids and vomiting food that might compromise muscle mass, that’s what she’ll do. She gets no affection from her father (János Papp), so Ádám’s attachment, although undemonstrative, is what she clings to. When she goes to hook up with her first client, Edina tells Ádám she’s meeting some friends, but he follows her to the hotel and though realizing what she’s doing, he stays quiet – it’s a testament to the film’s delicate character development that while it doesn’t explicitly address his feelings of emasculation, we know it must be eating him up inside.
She’s getting some unusual clients but none quite so imaginative as Krisztián (Csaba Krisztik), whose fondness for nature and the outdoors is connected to a non-verbal whimsy that feels as close to genuine affection as she’s ever experienced. Their connection transforms her – she’s smiling, looking forward to each creative encounter, and though keeping up her training, she’s taking secret bites of chocolate in an act of rebellion. Then one day she collapses in the gym and is told by the doctor that her heart can’t take her punishing regimen any longer.
By this point there’s been a complete alteration in how the viewer sees Edina, who’s no longer the confusing mix of gendered physical attributes that pigeonhole her at the start. A scene at her family’s farm where she calms a pig before its slaughter, and later tries on (presumably) her late mother’s cardigan, only to be scolded by her harsh father, completes the emotional transformation we as an audience experience, making the title Gentle more than simply an ironic oppositional trait. Through it all, Csonka is a marvel, so nuanced in her reactions, downplaying while still communicating an emotional trajectory that will upend Edina’s core. Turós is also impressive: Ádám’s narcissistic need to recapture the feeling of “being the best in the world at something” is what drives him to mold Edina in his own image, yet he’s not demonized, and the actor quietly conveys the character’s complexity.
Outside the competitions, Edina’s world is colorless and circumscribed, composed of monotonous routine and grimace-inducing endurance exercises that makes the glittering sequins on her posing bikini even more out of place. With Krisztián however, she enters into a more magical world, like a fairytale notion of forests and jungle, and the film’s visual palette nicely reflects the shift. Musical choices are memorable and marvelously integrated at just the right moments.
Director: László Csuja, Anna Nemes
Screenplay: László Csuja, Anna Nemes
Cast: Eszter Csonka, György Turós, Csaba Krisztik, Éva Kerekes, János Papp, Gábor Ferenczi, Máté Vörös, Ferenc Gerlóczy, Viktória Szorcsik, Balázs Czukor, Csaba Gerner, Katalin L?rincz, László Valiszka, Anna Nemes, Andrea Waskovics, Éva Rebecca Kovács, Brigitta Egyed
Producers: András Muhi, Gábor Ferenczy
Co-producers: Janine Jackowski, Jonas Dornbach, Maren Ade
Cinematography: Zágon Nagy
Production design: Anna Nyitrai
Costume design: Zsófia Anna Kormos
Editing: Attila Csabai
Music: Tamás Kreiner
Sound: Gábor Császár
Production companies: FocusFox (Hungary), Komplizen Films (Germany), ZDF/Arte (Germany), in association with Films Boutique
World Sales: Films Boutique
Venue: Sundance (World Cinema Dramatic Competition)
In Hungarian
92 minutes
