email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

SARAJEVO 2021 Documentary Competition

Review: Divas

by 

- Hungarian filmmaker Máté Kőrösi explores the lives of three 20-year-old girls, establishing a dialogue that inserts himself as one of the protagonists

Review: Divas

The first feature-length documentary by the Hungarian director Máté Kőrösi, Divas, which has world-premiered at Sarajevo, is a very good case of content matching form. In his exploration of striking personalities of three inseparable 20-year-old girls from Budapest, the filmmaker creates a true dialogue with them through his camera and some tasteful animation.

Szani, Tina and Emese attend the Belvárosi Tanoda school, where misfits and troublemakers get a last chance to finish their studies. Kőrösi uses his own voice-over to explain how he found the place and decided on the topic for his first film. Throughout the documentary, the director is present with his thoughts and associations, as well by appearing on-screen as an animated character, through a simple 2D technique which appears to work like rotoscopy.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

The three girls call themselves Divas, but they are really insecure millennials with very disparate personalities, living situations and hopes for the future. Szani is particularly vocal, very invested in her looks, lives alone and works in a karaoke bar. Tina is more quiet and spiritual, vegan and practices yoga, and early in the film she breaks up with her boyfriend which opens her up to intensely thinking about her choices and her future. Meanwhile, Emese is probably the most thoughtful and the least confident. In the end, Szani's difficult family story will provide an unexpectedly dark finale in which the viewer realizes how attached they got to the characters over the course of this lively, fast-paced, spirited film.

Kőrösi films with hand-held camera, often very close to the protagonists, and talks to them, creating conversations with a strong feeling of here-and-now. He is also a member of their chat group, and these messages often pop up on the screen. At one point he asks them to make daily videos of themselves, and these webcam testimonies increase the proximity to the characters. The city of Budapest, with the wide Danube, gorgeous bridges and boulevards, but also rain-soaked alleys, give the film a feeling of worldliness and universality.

Alexandra Láng's editing is fast and very kinetic, with individual scenes or shots often taking just a few seconds, consciously calling back to YouTube or TikTok video aesthetics. Márk Bartha's electronic score similarly fits the subjects' age and subculture group, but it is elegant and stays away from overly obvious references.

As Szani, Tina and Emese grow and mature over the course of the film, so does the director, himself only 26 when he started making the film. This conversation between generations - and sexes - is one of the film's most interesting aspects, but Kőrösi carefully sticks to the boundary he has set by the camera, except when explicitly invited to cross it.

Divas is a co-production of Hungary's Makabor Studio and HBO Europe, and Reservoir Docs has the international rights.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy