Géza Szöllősi, Artist

Géza Szöllősi is 29 and  graduated in Visual Communication from the University of Applied Arts in 2005. Ópium, a film featured at  the 38th Hungarian Fim Festival, is his second motion picture—following Taxidermia—where he worked under a unique title: spe

filmhu: How did your filming carreer start?

Géza Szöllősi: I have only really invented this profession, special art designer, after Taxidermia. Or the producer came up with it because we were having problems with what to put on the credits. I thought that it would be good, since there was no such actual profession. The special art designer is responsible  for the transformation, design, and production of objects, existing or imaginary. While working on Taxidermia I did not really know what my role was exactly, and neither did the crew, we only talked about it with Pálfi. On several occasions I had to go as low as to rummage around in intestines because the arrangement of intestines does indeed require a degree in arts. Co-operation with János Szász went very well, I was able to approach him saying ”I am the special art designer.”


filmhu: How did you and János Szász meet?

GSz:  He saw Taxidermia and that's how. He could see something in the designs of Taxidermia  that he needed to detach his film from reality. For a set in a lunatic asylum you can find the original pictures, the original instruments, you can duplicate them, but what if you want more than that?

 

An example: cold water treatment A shot from Ópium, and Géza Szöllősi's design

We talked about a scale in the first days of working together: reality was zero, Planet of the Apes was ten. We agreed on five. I was working on the designs, and I knew exactly where I was on the scale. When I gave him the finished material he chose the fives, not any of the stronger or lighter ones, and from that time forward I knew that we would be able to work together.

filmhu:Were you more restricted than in Taxidermia?

GSz: I was never really restricted. Changes in certain details were discussed occasionally. With Pálfi we had a year and a half between the first meeting to shooting, but with Szász everything happenned very quickly, we had very little time.

filmhu: What was your actual role in making the film?

GSz: An example: there was a part in the script that said 'cold water treatment'. The end product of it was the instrument you can see at the beginning of the film. We built it from a fish tank, a hoist, and the mixture of a corset and a straitjacket.

filmhu: Sometimes I had the feeling the instruments  had the air of sadist and masochist culture about them.

GSz: Yes, that is part of the function of the objects. The instrument featured at the beginning of the film, the 'hydroset', is based on two motifs: one is Houdini's tank, the other is Japanese 'bondage'. The fusion and functionality of the two things is valid insomuch that hot and cold water treatments were used in the past.

filmhu: Are you going to work on films in the future, are there any prospects on the horizon?

GSz: I am a bit dissappointed because this time last year I was already working on Ópium, but I do not have any actual invitations to projects. There are very few films in Hungary, and even less that need a contributor like myself.

filmhu:Of the many areas where you have endeavoured which is the dearest to you?

GSz: I can no longer enjoy photography and films that much. But objects and sculptures are there with you in three dimensions while you look at them. However strange or contradictory they might be, they exist and you have to accept their existence.