Long Twilight

Hosszu Alkony
Hungary
1997, 35mm, Color, 70 min.
U.S. Premiere

Director: Attila Janisch
Producer: Peter Miskolczi
Cinematographer: Gabor Medvigy
Editor: Anna Kornis
Screenwriter: Andras Forgach
Music: Marain Marais St. Colombe
Principal Cast: Mari Torocsik, Imre Csuja, Denes Uslaki

Winner of the 1997 Hungarian Film Week, Attila Janisch's Long Twilight, based on a short story by Shirley Jackson, plays like a Hungarian episode of "The Twilight Zone" in which an old woman (Mari Torocsik) boards a bus that takes her to a Kafka-esque world of mysterious manor houses and isolated way stations. "The landscapes of Long Twilight depict a treacherous place where anything could happen to anyone. The servants of hell are everyday monsters, simple bus and truck drivers, hikers, bicyclists. Underneath their forbearing indifference and rare kindness there is always a glowing, murderous anger. In this valley of tears where nothing matters, the flame of lurking madness is the only sign of life." (Filmvilag) "Janisch, a reader, no doubt, of German fantastic literature and the wonderful stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann, conducts his tale with the hand of a master story-teller... dismantling reality to create an atmosphere that becomes oppressive and suffocating, ensnaring the spectators with nightmare." (Cahiers du cinema)