And, once again, the Criterion Channel came through with another director that I didn't know about - but that I clearly needed to know about. Last night I watched the Hungarian director Lili Horvat's Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time. It tells the story of two successful doctors who meet at a conference in New Jersey (or maybe the don't) and agree to meet up on the Pest side of the Liberty Bridge in Budapest a month later (or maybe they don't). Natasa Stork plays Doctor Marta Vizy (or, more appropriately in Hungarian, Stork Natasa and Vizy Marta - I always had to try and keep this in mind back in the days of my GM program because we had partners in Hungary) who had left Hungary twenty years earlier for an impressive career in the US, before meeting (almost certainly) Doctor Janos Drexler (Viktor Bodo) at the conference. In her mind, they agree to meet, romantically, a month later at 5:00 p.m. Not only does Janos not show up, when she tracks him down he claims to not know her. In the meantime, she has quit her job and moved back to Hungary. As she tries to unravel this mystery - and begins to doubt her sanity - we follow their love affair (or maybe not). I liked it quite a bit, and both the leads were very good - and mysterious - in roles that could have turned out to be tropes, but, thankfully, were not. Definitely recommended. It made me want to go back to Budapest.
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