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Q&A: Kornel Mundruczo

White God is Kornel Mundruczos fifth feature and easily his most daring. The tale of an innocent mutt who winds up organizing an uprising of Budapests canine population, it functions on a fantastical, allegorical level that film-festival audiences have been embracing since last years Cannes, where it won the Un Certain Regard prize. The movies canine stars, Luke and Body, shared the less glittery but much more adorable Palm Dog award for best animal performance.

Mundruczo spoke to me over the phone from the Sundance Film Festival, where hed brought the film and the aforementioned Luke and Body earlier this winter.

A great deal of White God hangs on the performances of animal actors, with certain scenes requiring dozens of dogs. That couldnt have been easy to organize.

When I started looking for trainers, I heard a lot of no at the beginning. Not just from professional trainers in Hungary, but from Europe [in general]. And then, when I felt, Okay, this movies over, nobody wants to deal with that, and maybe thats the right decision because this film is impossible then I found Teresa Miller. She was the one who told me, Okay, maybe. Maybe we can do this movie.

There was a Hungarian trainer as well, wasnt there?

Arpad Halasz. Before this movie, he wasnt involved with filmmaking, but he has a really special method working with dogs. He has a dog school. I went to his ranch, and I asked him, What do you think about the script? Could it be possible? And he said yes. But I must say, without those two geniuses, I could never have done this movie. It was really, really important, and they really cooperated very well…. I think they learned from each other a lot. And thats what is on the screen: we have a really emotional hero, and we have a really strong pack behind him. Without any of that, it simply wouldnt work. Its like music if youre holding a piano concert, you need the piano but you need the whole orchestra behind it.

How did this project originate?

I like to find a theme that is unique for me, that lets me take risks because lately Im tired of hardcore art-house [films] and pure action movies. Im very bored. I was trying to find something that would let me address our new reality, and I was really in trouble I couldnt find any kind of theme. I went to a dog pound in Hungary for a different reason and I was really touched. I immediately said, Ive found my theme. Because its really metaphorical, but very concrete in another way.

Neglected animals? The idea of mongrel outcasts in Europe? An allegory for fears of a nation overwhelmed by immigration?

It was really important that you can perceive the dogs as humans. And they are our closest animal [companions], of course, so everybody sees them as humans. This is our crutch, our code: if youre watching a dog, then youre watching a human. That was something really important for me. I mean, Im still very surprised how many levels you can read into this movie. You can read those levels because of the dogs and because of the metaphor and because of contemporary reality and also cinematically, like, so many genres are crossing and melting within this story.

Youve said that parallels your own experience.

When Im walking in Budapest from one block to another? Every single step, theres a different genre coming. Horror, political satire, comedy, melodrama, all things. Its melting. Theres no clear ideology. After the economic crisis, weve got so many more questions. And this tale, somehow, its a fairy tale, but its like a moral drama from the Middle Ages. I think these moral dramas are very timely now because were asking the same questions, which weve forgotten.

Audiences are certainly responding to something White God is a hit on the festival circuit, and people are definitely digging into its layers.

At Sundance, the industry professionals asked more technical questions, but they liked the movie very much. But the Salt Lake premiere was very, very good. Just a normal audience, and they asked very, very analytical questions. I was really proud that a normal audience could be very loaded and clever after the movie.

Is it strange to see this movie breaking out internationally, when your other films have had very little play at that scale?

I mean, my main impression was to criticize my society and reflect things to a Hungarian audience. But this movie became a more international one, and its much more [digestible] everywhere maybe because of the animals, or because we are all in the same shoes somehow. I dont know yet, because I dont understand clearly what happened, the phenomenon of this movie. Certainly I like to take risks for art, and with this movie, we took a lot of risks. I mean, we didnt even know during shooting what was going to happen whether it would work, balancing these genres. But I really enjoyed it, and I also enjoyed using my full creativity in making it.

normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner

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