Ferenc Moldoványi: Another Planet

The new work by Ferenc Moldoványi who has also directed “Children, Kosovo 2000”, presented and awarded at several festivals, is also about the lives of children and it is not only a large-scale enterprise but at the same time a film with a global message

The little cigarette and chewing-gum vendor girl in Ecuador, the shoeshine boy sharing the same fate, the street urchin in Congo, the child-prostitute, the child-soldiers, the painfully young workers in a brick factory in Cambodia and those earning a dollar per day by sifting the rubbish on a huge dump all depicted by Ferenc Moldoványi are at times much rougher and harrowing than some investigative reportage (it is shocking for example when the underage African prostitute gives an account of how she was raped by four policemen with total apathy on her face and in her voice but it is equally chilling to listen to the account of child-soldiers in Congo telling about killing and raping of women).



The filmmaker however goes well beyond mere depiction and places the lives of his child characters into a much higher context moulding them to convey a global and so to say cosmic message. The most important means of achieving this, besides Tibor Máthé’s images and Tibor Szemző’s music, is the fictional framing story, in which the documentary sequences are inlayed. At the very beginning of “Another Planet” we can see the wise magician of a North American Indian tribe (the Tarahumaras) together with a baby girl and her mother in a wonderfully beautiful landscape. We return to this idyllic and paradisical situation several times during the film.

In this respect the film recalls the French nature film titled “Genesis” (in which an old African magician tells the story of the birth of living creatures on the Earth) on the other hand the fictional parts of the work are in an obvious and extremely dramatic juxtaposition with the shocking and moving documentary dramas. It may also come to the mind and needs to be contemplated that all the horrors seen are only visions, or nightmares of the little girl and shaman. The opposition of two worlds, Nature and Civilization is expressed in the double reference of the title: Another Planet may mean that another , happier more idealistic world does exist beyond the misery and exploitation but it may also refer to this 21st century Planet with its enslaved children, which is indeed another planet but not ours because it is absolutely impossible to identify with it.

There is however, a passage and even a link between these two markedly different worlds: it is the Tarahumaras (and their shaman with his magical powers) living in unspoiled, untouched and ancestral nature – the ancestral and magical trait lives on hidden in the children living in a destructive civilization on the brink of destruction itself. The children talking about misery, exploitation and enslavement also mention their dreams as if by chance (in which apocalyptic visions, hell itself, ancient superstitions appear as well as biblical elements) or they talk about being accused of witchcraft (the street urchins in Congo end up living in the street because their family brands them as “child witches” and chases them from home). Merveille the child-prostitute’s name means miracle moreover Luz’s, the little street vendor girl’s, name means light.

 

Presuming that we agree that films applying the power of montage, rhythm and music in their sequences of documentary images achieve a higher level of filmic art - for example Godfrey Reggio’s qatsi trilogy (Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Naqoyqatsi), Baraka or Bodysong - and we call these film-poetry or image-poetry then by the same token applying a definitely unusual if not unique method we can surely call “Another Planet” a film-essay, where the stark and naked presentation of reality and the ambition of achieving an artistic effect are both employed and required.

Why exactly children? It is not the first time that Ferenc Moldoványi has worked with children (see the above mentioned documentary, “Children, Kosovo 2000” ) but this time the young ones, besides representing their own person and story, seem to gain, if possible, some further significance and meaning as their personal fate becomes symbolic. As they are exploited and abused in spite of their innocence they become the absolute representation of total subjection. “ One can grasp the essence of defencelessness through the lives of these children.” – the director commented, following the screening of his film, who summing it all up wishes to send out a global message about the moral crisis of our Planet.

The lives of these children and what they represent is fiercely shocking, exasperating leaving one bitter and disillusioned. It is a fact that “the income of the two richest men in the world equals the GDP of more than 40 countries in the world or that out of the 6 billion people living on our Planet 3 billion subsist on less than 1 USD per day..” Not all is lost however until films like that of Ferenc Moldoványi’s are made, maybe...

Judit Vajda