Sticky Matters

Szabolcs Hajdu’s second feature is a modest and amusing romantic comedy, in which we follow the vicissitudes of a simple love story in contemporary Debrecen, Hungary. The camerawork is fantastic (it has been compared with Danny Boyle and Lars von Trier), the characters are played by friends and acquaintances of the maker, with whom he cooperated from the very start of the production. In addition, Miklós Jancsó does not only play a guest role, the film can also be regarded as an homage to his appealing oeuvre. The reviews also rightly mentioned the influence of Godard (especially his Pierrot le fou and Alphaville), Truffaut (Jules et Jim) and even the Surrealists and Fellini. Nevertheless Sticky Matters is an extremely fresh, original film with humour, compassion and a feeling for detail.The story is simple. A girl is on the skids because of love. A shorttempered and passionate young man falls in love with the girl. His emotions are so powerful that he is prepared to surrender his whole personality. The boy has a good friend, who is not sure whether their bond is friendly or homosexual. Before the girl arrived, the friendship was close, but now she has thrown a spanner in the works. How do they react to the new situation?