Katalin Varga

The most striking aspect of Katalin Varga is the sound design. Natural sounds are increased to an unnatural volume, while discordant music lends an air of foreboding to this low-budget tale of revenge. The viewer is further unsettled by the oddly timeless quality of the setting. It's only the mention of mobile phones and the sight of passing cars that indicate it's a contemporary tale. Katalin drives a horse and cart across rural Transylvania after being thrown out by her husband when he discovers the truth about the paternity of his son. The boy, meanwhile, thinks they are visiting his dying grandmother but it gradually becomes clear that Katalin has other plans: namely to hunt down and kill the two men who raped her 10 years earlier. As with any good revenge tragedy, morality becomes increasingly murky. Characters pray, and talk about sin and redemption, but Katalin's first crime damns her as surely as her rapists. Matters come to a head when she finds the second man, now happily married and by all accounts a good man. The appalled expression on his face as he realizes the past has caught up with him suggests a man about to face the end of his world. Even the one truly innocent character, his wife, ends up committing an act that costs her sould. As for Katalin, there's a dreadful symmetry to her fate. Blood will have blood.