Gendered Quest in Recent Hungarian Fantasy Films

Authors

  • Vera Benczik

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/ahea.2019.365

Keywords:

coming-of-age narratives, redemptive narratives, “Groundhog Day” narrative template, female quest vs. male quest, the quest in fantasy/science fiction narratives, gendered quest, the fantastic in Hungarian filmmaking

Abstract

Although the fantastic in print looks back upon a tradition of commenting on issues of race and gender, films that use the mode tend to be more conservative in their approach to subverting the patriarchal script, that is, the tendency of patriarchal society prescribing certain normative behaviors based on gender while punishing deviations from these norms. While this is especially true for blockbuster movies, independent filmmaking has come to appreciate the subversive potential of fantasy. The present study will scrutinize the fantastic as a storytelling mechanism in recent Hungarian cinema, with special emphasis on the uses of the quest formula and its intersections with gender scripts in the films Hurok [‘Loop’] (2016), and Liza, a rókatündér [‘Liza, the Fox-Fairy’] (2015).

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Published

2019-08-01

Issue

Section

Thematic Cluster: On Hungarian Historical, Literary and Filmic Constructions of Gender. Guest Editor: Enikő Bollobás