Archive Hungarian Salami

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Comedy, 15:00 minutes, English, ON, 2006

Synopsis

Louis runs a family operated restaurant in the outskirts of a small village and is well known to have a gift in resurrecting the dead. However, he does not accept these acknowledgements concerning himself.

One night, he is visited by a bride and a groom due to sudden death of a bride’s father before the wedding. According to their customs, marriage can not take place within six months in the presence of a death. However, the bride is pregnant and the wedding must proceed regardless.

Does Louis actually have the power to revive the dead and help the couple in time?

Creative team

Writer/director/producer: Sibel Guvenc
Writer/producer: Murat Guvenc

Personal statement

Director Sibel Guvenc says:

"Throughout history, people have always tried to find a way to understand and cope with the meaning of life and death. With the enigmatic nature of death comes a sense of fear that is deeply entrenched in ancient and modern cultures.

Death has loomed as one of the most sensational mysteries and perhaps the last inevitability that people must face in their incomprehensible destiny. In many societies, people believe that death comes to them as God’s will, whenever the time is right. Through faith people accept this fate.

Hungarian Salami is a story about myth, ritual and imagination. The film unfolds in a transitional state between the human and supernatural world and depicts how myth, that cannot be explained by logic, familiar knowledge or beliefs, challenge realism. However, as the film progresses we realize that the beliefs and the rituals demand a totally different perception as it is stated by the protagonist Louis: “I know some of the things in life are not in our control or in our best intention, but still we can not let everything go through its own natural course. We occasionally need to interrupt or interfere for our own happiness.”

The story is placed in early spring in a small European village in an unknown past with its saturated, dense colors and mysterious environment. The story is told through Louis, a crotchety, stubborn cook who runs a family operated restaurant. The characters have comedic presence with an original look. The film builds a transitional state between the world of real and fantasy, taking us to a ritualistic journey into the myth of resurrection accompanied by ethnic jazz music with accordion, brass and wind instruments.

I am inspired from magical realist writers. Rebecca, one of the characters in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, carries her dead parents’ bones all the time thinking that they might come back to life. Ben Okri’s The Famished Road is about Azaro, a spirit child who can’t stay long in the world of the living, chooses to fight death and face hunger rather than return to the land of spirits.

Paulo Coelho with his novel The Alchemist says “When you really want something to happen, the whole universe helps your wish to come true”. In Hungarian Salami, the maturity, knowledge and strength of an old man unites with the purity, imagination and energy of a young boy to create the magical power. Mysteries of love and human survival are the core of all these stories."