TEMPTATIONS

Shot in both color and monochrome, the bizarre, tragicomic TEMPTATIONS starts off like an Eastern European version of the Ben Stiller farce “Flirting with Disaster” and ends with a gasp like a Stephen King shocker. Discontented in his single-mother's crazy, crowded house and feeling directionless in his science studies, a young man named Marci decides he needs to meet the father he never got to know. The prodigal parent turns out to be a rather ineffectual and lonely entrepreneur, who doesn't ask questions when Marci shows up, he just puts the youth to work doing the same rote, manual labor that led the previous employees to go on strike. But the job results in Marci meeting Juli, an adolescent witch from a gypsy tribe. The illiterate girl's paranormal powers complement Marci's computer-hacking savvy, and together they empty the digitized accounts of various banks. Things look good, until the complications of Marci's coquettish, on-again-off-again girlfriend Elvira, his mother's married lover, and lots of unfriendly police. Ultimately, ingredients of love, betrayal, jealousy and sorcery bring the contents of filmmaker Zolt?n Kamondi's cauldron to a baneful boil, a dark climax the filmmaker has said was his response to September 11. Not easily classifiable, TEMPTATIONS is certainly not a feature that holds anything back. (In Magyar with English subtitles)