EIFF 2015: Liza, the Fox-Fairy
The directorial debut of Károly Ujj Mészáros, Liza, the Fox-Fairy, plays like a Hungarian cocktail of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Roy Andersson and Takashi Miike.
It’s 1960s Budapest, and lonely live-in nurse Liza (Balsai) cares for the wife of the Japanese ambassador, who shares with her the stories and culture that get her romantic imagination going. In the spirit of Fred Flintstone and the Great Gazoo, hanging around the flat is the ghost of a late Japanese pop singer that only Liza can see. He loves to dance, lip-sync when his hits play, and also, in fits of jealousy, murder anyone Liza gets close to. Police are on her case, and poor Liza is growing convinced she must be a fox-fairy, a creature that spells death for any man that falls for her.
Mészáros executes his mayhem with great panache. Key to not making its oddball nature seem like shallow quirk is Balsai’s charming performance and the running emotional current of someone with so little self-worth they feel they’re destroying everything around them.