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VENICE 2021 International Film Critics’ Week

Review: Erasing Frank

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- VENICE 2021: Gabor Fabricius’ debut feature is a nightmarish tale of oppression, set amidst a regime that won’t hesitate to annihilate any trace of individuality

Review: Erasing Frank
Benjamin Fuchs and Andrea Waskovich in Erasing Frank

Gabor Fabricius’ debut feature, Erasing Frank [+see also:
trailer
interview: Gábor Fabricius
film profile
]
, is a story of “political psychiatry”. The title, playing in this year’s International Film Critics’ Week at the Venice Film Festival, follows a twentysomething punk singer called Robert Frank (played by Benjamin Fuchs), angry at the state and fearing the prospect of living in a country with no future. After being arrested by the police for singing politically charged songs, he is brought to the open ward of a psychiatric clinic. There, he can enjoy a relatively high degree of freedom. He can go out whenever and wherever he wants, but this freedom of movement does not prevent the regime from putting pressure on him and prompting his inexorable descent into the abyss.

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The feature, entirely shot in black and white by the talented Tamas Dobos (Natural Light [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dénes Nagy
film profile
]
, Willow [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
interview: Milcho Manchevski
interview: Sara Klimoska
film profile
]
), is presumably set in 1983 – that’s also what Frank seems to claim – but the absence of colour, the bare-bones production design and the grainy images contribute to building up a sort of timeless dimension, where there is little room for hues or colours, but only for clear dos and don’ts.

Quite obviously, the whole narrative is driven by a clear sense of oppression and hopelessness. This is reflected not only through a solid mise-en-scène and the aseptic locations, but also through the conversations that Frank has with whoever represents the state authority and its propaganda machine. The feeling is that the artist keeps on talking to brick walls, and this, despite the absence of cages and straitjackets (at least for a while), is enough to chip away at Frank’s mental health. Here, the mere existence of the status quo and the presence of the “anaesthetised” masses vulnerable to exploitation act as a trigger that drives him mad.

Annihilation takes the form of erasinga rebel’s identity, and this is the main process we can observe in Fabricius’ film. In this hopeless battle, Frank finds only one ally, a girl called Hanna (Kincsö Blénesi), perhaps the film’s most interesting supporting character along with Erös (a disturbing István Lénárt), an old intellectual who is aligned with the Party’s ideology and attempts to convince Frank to stop “corrupting the youth”. Their more or less lucid conversations are filled with angst-inducing silences. His calm, but tired, tone of voice and his ailing, elderly body embody the metaphor of an outdated power that can barely stand on its own two feet, a monstrous creature that keeps on devouring rebellion, progress and anything that could modify the current order of things.

All things considered, Erasing Frank is a notable piece of work and, despite some slowdowns in the first half of the film, manages to create a surreal, disquieting atmosphere. An ambiguous ending closes Fabricius’ promising debut, where punk music, once again, takes centre stage.

Erasing Frank was produced by Dér Tamás, Gábor Fabricius and Barna Tamás for Hungarian outfit Otherside Stories. Paris-based firm Totem Films is in charge of its international sales.

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