– Hungarian filmmaker Borbála Nagy portrays the challenges and dilemmas of motherhood through three parallel narratives of Hungarian women living across Europe in her debut feature
Orsolya Török-Illyés in Mambo Maternica
Late maternity is a hot topic today, and it seems that Hungarian newcomer Borbála Nagy felt an urgency to make the right choice with her first feature, Mambo Maternica, currently screening in the Hungarian Day section of the Transilvania International Film Festival, and thus attract attention at the beginning of her career. She has also made other seemingly right, straightforward choices regarding the creation of the characters and the details that define them, as well as the narrative structure and pacing of her production, which is strategically designed as a pan-European project – a step that, however, feels largely pointless in terms of content. As a result, what we are watching feels more like a series of case studies drawn from a representative selection of women facing the prospect of late maternity than a cast of fully fledged characters with natural, lifelike traits. And the mosaic narrative, which feels intriguing throughout the first half-hour, soon becomes tedious because of predictable situations seemingly pulled out of thin air and clichéd dialogue, all topped off by a surprisingly inadequate open ending.
Furrow-browed Adél (Orsolya Török-Illyés), a university lecturer on a short-term contract in Paris, finds herself pregnant by one of her younger students and seems determined to take the abortion pill, but her gynaecologist advises her to sleep on the decision and wait until the next day. Comfortably, if rather boringly, settled in Budapest, Nóra (Vera Sipos) seems determined to adopt a child, but her perpetually busy husband is hesitant and not particularly involved in the process, as he already has a pain-in-the-ass teenage daughter from a previous marriage. Following a break-up, actress Becky (Rozi Székely), living in Berlin, has lost patience waiting for Mr Right and seems determined to pursue artificial insemination, but her family is far from supportive. All three women appear to be in their forties, and they never really cross paths, being merely lined up in the screenplay like bottles on an apothecary’s shelf, with narrative time allotted to each in scrupulously equal measure, lest anyone have reason to complain.
Put together with a noticeable urge to push back against stereotypes, the film is actually very much based on them, mostly in the way it profiles its heroines through small, predictable details. As a consequence, their otherwise turbulent life situations play out with the moderate dramatic charge of a TV soap, carefully calibrated to keep audiences hooked without risking that housewives might burn the meal. The end result is an overly basic film tackling an overly complicated topic, one that it does not seem able to discuss in any real depth. Hence, it is no wonder that the otherwise seemingly determined author, who tries to understand and explain the circumstances and motives behind the three protagonists’ actions, ultimately fails to lead them towards a denouement that truly makes sense.
Mambo Maternica was produced by Hungary’s Lupa Pictures, France’s Sister Productions, Germany’s Voices Films and the German Film & TV Academy Berlin.
