On Body and Soul (2017)

Awkward is the word that most comes to mind when trying to describe On Body and Soul, writer/director Indiko Enyedi's treatise on love and connection. Awkward because she chooses subjects who don't connect well into the world around them. But also awkward because she has structured her film in a way that doesn't allow her characters to interact in a natural way. I wasn't convinced this was a stylized choice. It felt more to me like a fumble which took me out of the film more than it allowed me to connect with it. While the idea of finding a fit within an ill-fitting world is a fascinating one, I never felt On Body and Soul got there honestly.

The premise is that two people who struggle socially (a woman who has autistic qualities and/or touch related phobias, and a man who has cut himself off from emotional contact) begin sharing the same dream. This is a fascinating place to start and it is where Enyedi's film soars. The dream sequences are moments of exquisite beauty, like the reasons the film has garnered such popular praise. One could get lost in the dreams and in fact her characters try to yet keep getting pulled back into to starker world they live in.

She brilliantly crafts her real world as dull and somewhat vile. Her characters work in a slaughter house and there are scenes of actual slaughter included in the film for shock value, or perhaps more generously for contract with the naturalist world of their shared dream. In the dream they are deer, living in a pristine, gorgeous forest. In real life they have blood on their hands, and clothes, and bodies.

But it is from the set up that the film falls for me. Enyedi seems to obsessed with her trope that she doesn't build the connective tissue in a way that feels honest. There is a "crime". Someone at the slaughterhouse has stolen something. So a psychologist is hired to interview everyone about their first sexual experiences to see if they can uncover the thief. Right? Doesn't make logical sense. The psychologist's questions are nonsensical, inappropriate, and likely unprofessional. Her character acts completely unprofessional through the entire movie, as does the main character played by Geza Morcsanyi. I know it was a device to get to her "they are dreaming the same dream" gimmick but it was just so poorly done that it took me out of the movie each time it was going on. There were so many moments when the film would get to these moments where the characters were acting so unbelievably awkward that it didn't feel like a character piece but a cheat so that the larger story could be told.

The ending frustrated me to. There is a moment near the end which I don't want to spoil which appears to be designed to mirror the slaughter going on at work which is not truly earned by the film. And the film then uses a cheat to get out of it. It's played for dark humour but it just made my eyes roll.

For me On Body and Soul failed to get me to the place where I could believe it. It felt I was being played a bit despite seeing all the potential in the idea, and in those lovely little moments which did reach some inspiring peaks.

On Body and Soul
Starring: Geza Morcsanyi, Alexandra Borbely
Writer/Director: Indiko Enyedi