FINAL CUT: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN Review

Release Date: TBD
Director: György Pálfi
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Film Pulse Score: 9/10

Movies have been around for more than a hundred years.  Countless thousands of films, long and short form, have been made since the first film hit the screens of the local nickelodeons.  Various genres have entertained audiences throughout cinema’s existence.  With so much imagery out there, imagery that told a very clear story, imagery that has touched us to our very souls, what would happened if someone took that imagery and made it into something else?   With the invention of the internet and the arrival of shared media, fans have shared countless mash-ups, fan cuts and super cuts of their favorite films.  Typically these cuts have been short films of about two to five minutes in length.   Hungarian director Gyorgy Palfi’s latest film can only be described as the ultimate super cut.  It is a feature film comprised of scenes from over four hundred films, and some TV shows, that form a cohesive narrative.  It is a sight to behold.

The story is fairly generic.  It’s not that far removed from the stereotypical romantic comedies that have hit the silver screen over the years.  Boy meets girl.  Boy loses girl.  Boy pursues girl.  They get back together and fall in love.   However it’s how this tale is told that not only challenges the viewer to keep up but really forces the viewer to think out of the box.  During a walking scene, cut to the Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive,” a character is seen walking.  We know this is meant to be one character but their appearance will change every few seconds because the entire sequence is comprised of different scenes from different films.  That is how the film goes.   Sequences are edited together seamlessly and despite the inherent nature of the presentation it is never confusing.

Equal credit must be given to Palfi and his four-person editing team.  Just thinking about the amount of footage they must have culled from is daunting to say the least.    It must have been a painstaking process.    The story and screenplay written by Palfi and Zsofia Ruttkay is full of humor and frequent in-jokes.   They often elicit laughter not just from the scene but the image that was used to represent that moment in the film.   Scenes that are etched in our memories take on a whole new meaning when viewed in this film.   There is a moment that features Norman Bates final smile at the end of Psycho and in the context of the film it means something completely different and it is hilarious.   The film does takes some interesting unexpected twists that can at first seem confusing based on the scenes shown but when you realize what’s going on you start to laugh.

This is a truly entertaining film that will be embraced by film lovers if it ever sees wide distribution.  It is currently making rounds on the festival circuit and may land at a local repertoire theatre, as it did in Los Angeles for one night only.   This is one to seek out and worth seeing again.