Zoltán Kamondi is the director, screenwriter and producer of the film Dolina, a quirky drama of religion, family obligations and corruption set in a dusty God-forsaken village in the Eastern-Carpathian mountains. Funzine correspondent Nóra Demok sat down with the man, wearing his trademark little hat and smoking lot of cigarettes.
Funzine: What was it about Ádám Bodor’s novel Visit of the Bishop (Az érsek látogatása) that caught your attention for the basis of your film?
Zoltán Kamondi: It was released at the book-week in 1999. When I read it, I immediately visited Ádám and discussed the possibility. Since then I’ve been working on it for almost eight years, and focusing strongly on the project for the last five.
FZ: How much has the screenplay changed compared to the novel and how much compromise was needed from the writer?
Z.K: Ádám was fantastic in this way. He positively wanted it to be a Kamondi film – not simply a true adaptation of the novel, but a re-imagination of what he wrote and envisioned.
FZ: How could you put the complicated circular timeline of the novel into film?
Z.K: After trying to use this time-structure, which restricted possibilities in different ways and would only be possible by using a complicated mechanism. We became ambivalent about the original concept and gave up on it. That took 18 months. In the end, we saved the web of action-threads from the novel, but put them in chronological order.
FZ: The film is a Hungarian-Romanian-Italian co-production. Was this something you imagined doing from the beginning?
Z.K: It was clear from the start that the film would be very expensive, because we had to adapt Bodor’s metaphoric, visual-heavy language into film. Thus, we decided to build the scenery to be spectacular, with very high expectations, and we simply couldn’t get enough money in Hungary alone.
FZ: How did you find the shoot location of Hargitafürdo, Romania?
Z.K: A central setting point of the film is that Dolina stinks of the garbage being dumped there constantly and the town gradually sinks in it. The Kaolin „Desert” we found there seemed to be very useful as an industrial wasteland in which to construct the set.
FZ: The dynamic way in which the camera shows us [protagonist] Gabriel’s personality changes allowed us a very personal point of view. Are we beholders and participants at the same time?
Z.K: Yes, it was very important, as Gabriel Ventuza’s character carries his destiny; his fate is to stay in Dolina and become a grey, characterless person, and even a people-smuggler by the end of the story.
FZ: How would you describe the main, omniscient problem of Dolina?
Z.K: The film takes place in a country ruled by terror. We tried to communicate that in a way that is open to several interpretations and fortunately it works: people in other countries can understand the film in the context of their own problems.
The movie deals with the private life of every-day people, and how their relationships become deviant in this kind of situation. Dolina creates a moral space, not necessarily in a political or sociological way, and the conclusion gives a gravitas to every place where a damaged morality has persevered despite favorable and promising political or economic changes.
FZ: Is it possible to escape from Dolina?
Z.K: No, I don’t think so. While I won’t give away the ending, it’s clear that our hero Gabriel is getting sucked in, perhaps irreversibly. That’s me; that’s everybody. We all have a Dolina of our own in life.