General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Taxidermia (Таксидермия)

Taxidermia (Таксидермия) is a 2006 Hungarian-language feature film directed by György Pálfi, a Hungary, Austria, and France co-production that tells the story of three generations of Hungarian men across World War II, the socialist era, and post-communist Hungary through grotesque, surrealist imagery.¹^•² It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and won the Main Prize at the 37th Hungarian Film Week.¹^•³

Key fact	Detail
Director / screenplay	György Pálfi; screenplay by Pálfi and Zsófia Ruttkay, based on short stories by Lajos Parti Nagy¹^•⁴
Production	Hungary, Austria, France, 2006; produced by Eurofilm Studio with Amour Fou Filmproduktion, Memento Films, Arte France Cinéma, and La Cinéfacture¹^•⁵
Runtime	About 91 minutes (Cannes lists 92; the Hungarian Film Archive lists 90)¹^•⁶^•⁴
Principal cast	Csaba Czene (Vendel Morosgoványi), Gergő Trócsányi (Kálmán Balatony), Marc Bischoff (Lajos Balatony), Piroska Molnár, Adél Stanczel, Gábor Máté¹
Key crew	Cinematography Gergely Pohárnok; music Amon Tobin; editing Réka Lemhényi; production design Adrien Asztalos¹
Reception	Metascore 83 ("Universal Acclaim"); Rotten Tomatoes 81% from 47 reviews⁷^•²
Oscar entry	Hungary's official submission for Best Foreign Language Film, announced 6 September 2007⁸

Spoilers

Story structure

The film is built as a triptych of three episodes, one per generation, each tied to a historical period in Hungary: World War II, the Soviet-dominated socialist decades, and the consumer culture of the present.⁹ The first generation is Morosgoványi Vendel (Csaba Czene), a sexually frustrated orderly serving at a desolate wartime outpost under a lieutenant and his family, whose life is dominated by fantasy and hunger for sex.²^•⁴ The second is his son Balatony Kálmán (Gergő Trócsányi), a glutton who becomes a champion competitive speed eater in socialist Hungary, competing for the greater glory of the regime and romancing a female champion, Gizi Aczél (Adél Stanczel).²^•⁹^•¹ The third is Kálmán's son Balatony Lajoska (Marc Bischoff), a taxidermist who cares for his father, now a morbidly obese invalid, and becomes obsessed with preserving bodies, including his own.²^•⁹

The Hungarian Film Archive describes the three men's desires as love, success, and immortality respectively, and notes that the father's competitive record in chocolate wafers is given as 2.98, against a European champion's 3.21.⁴ A voice-over narrator frames the whole story; a Hungarian retrospective account notes that the narrator's outsider perspective makes the narration fragmentary and anecdotal, and that the narrator appears on screen at the end to judge the characters' strivings.¹⁰

Interpretation

Scholarly readings treat the film as an allegory of modern Hungarian history told through the body. The East European Film Bulletin summarizes its scheme as "Grandfather, father, son. War, communism, post-communism. Lust, gluttony, vanity," with each generation mapped to an era and a sin.⁹ A study of Hungarian cinema after the fall of communism argues that the film's grotesque devouring in the middle section expresses the socialist ideology of collective property and the lack of private property, and that the film's first and last images, a body stimulating itself by candle flame and a camera zooming into the stuffed torso of the taxidermist, stress the literal, non-transcendental presence of the material body.¹⁸ Another account reads the three parts as tales of survival under three political systems, ending with the family reinvented as an exhibit of stuffed bodies displayed as art for Western consumers.¹⁹ The Hungarian Film Archive records that some domestic critics hailed the film as a major milestone in Hungarian cinematography, while noting that its perverse and violent scenes invite comparison with Pasolini's Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.²⁰

Sources and adaptation

Pálfi found the skeleton of the story in two short stories by the Hungarian writer Lajos Parti Nagy, A hullámzó Balaton (The Rippling Balaton) and A fagyott kutya lába (The Frozen Dog's Leg).¹¹^•¹² In the source stories the characters are not related; the film made them into a family, so the film is not a conventional adaptation.¹¹ Pálfi said in a 2006 interview that Parti Nagy had an active role in the script, re-writing some dialogue, and that the filmmakers worked to give the three stories a dramaturgic unity.⁵

Production

The film took about five years from concept to completion. Pálfi told the Hungarian press that the script was initially rejected in Hungary, that funding broke through when the French channel Arte supported the project, and that the film was ultimately made for about 2 million euros, with 45 shooting days spread over roughly a year and a half in three separate blocks because of the complexity of the effects work.¹³^•⁵ Because of the Austrian co-production, the role of Lajos went to the Austrian Marc Bischoff, and Kálmán was played by Gergő Trócsányi, a singer known from the band Hollywoodoo rather than a professional actor.¹¹ The bizarre taxidermied preparations seen in the film were made by the fine artist Géza Szöllősi.¹¹ The score is by the Brazilian-born electronic musician Amon Tobin.¹⁴

Reception and festival run

After its Cannes premiere in Un Certain Regard, where a 2,000-strong audience gave it a standing ovation according to its producer, the film screened at Toronto and London in 2006 and was released across Europe from August 2006 (France) through 2007 (Austria, Spain, the United Kingdom).¹⁵^•⁶^•³ Its United States theatrical release came later, on August 14, 2009, through Regent Releasing, grossing $10.2K.²

Critical response was strongly positive on aggregate: the film holds a Metascore of 83, with seven positive and two mixed reviews and no negative ones, and an 81% Tomatometer.⁷^•² Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "a brilliant, often grotesquely bizarre allegory on life in Hungary from World War II to the present," and Eddie Cockrell of Variety wrote that it "sets a benchmark for body horror in the cinema."⁷ Reviewers consistently flagged its extremity: the Guardian's DVD review advised that potential viewers "should have sickbags to hand," while the New Zealand Film Festival catalog described it as an "assault on the senses" not recommended for all tastes.¹⁶^•⁶

Awards

At the 37th Hungarian Film Week in 2006 the film won the Main Prize, Best Set Design, Best Supporting Actress (Adél Stanczel), Best Supporting Actor (Csaba Czene), the Student Jury's Main Prize, and the Gene Moskowitz critics' prize.³^•¹⁷ Internationally it shared the Iris Award for Best Film at the Brussels Festival of European Film (2006), won Best Director for Pálfi at the Antalya Golden Orange International Film Festival (2006), took the Don Quijote Prize at the Cottbus FilmFestival (2006), the Meeting Point Europe Award at Piešťany (2007), and a Silver Hugo at Chicago (2006).⁴ In September 2007 Hungary's selection committee chose it as the country's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Black comedy and satire films › Released 1998 to 2024

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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