Saturday 26.10.24 @ OFFLINE | 10.00
51m | Digital | English translation world premiere
Hungarian scientist and man of letters and leisure János Bátky (Iván Darvas) enjoys sparkling society life, spending his evenings in the company of various ladies. Ilonka, his long suffering secret companion of several years, manages to make the bachelor almost truly fall in love – however, he is afraid of marriage and prefers to push her away.
The first of György Révész’s Antal Szerb adaptations featuring the author’s analogue János Bátky (the second, The Pendragon Legend, screens immediately afterwards), The Loves of a Dilettante draws on two short stories – A Dog Called Madelon and Musings in the Library in which Bátky “finds himself stymied by the difference between what he imagines the women he sleeps with are like, and what they actually are.” Révész is perhaps best known as a purveyor of popular Hungarian cinema, and unfortunately doesn’t enjoy the international status of arthouse darling Béla Tarr or émigré of classical Hollywood Michael Curtiz (aka Mihály Kertész). Lead Iván Darvas (who also appears in The Pendragon Legend, this time as Bátky’s opposite), gives a charmingly deluded performance, whether draping himself over a book, a park bench or a woman.
