Nominated for Best International Feature
Q&A with Tibor Bánóczki & Sarolta Szabó
It’s 2123 and a young couple are living in a barren, post-apocalyptic Budapest. Faced with diminishing resources, humans can only survive through a trade-off: at the age of 50, every citizen is gradually turned into a tree. When Nora volunteers before her time, Stefan sets out to save her at all costs.
Animated in an uncanny style by turns reminiscent of A Scanner Darkly and Heavy Metal, White Plastic Sky is in part an ode to the beauty and ugliness of one of Europe’s great nations. With quiet force, it imagines a future Hungary where, despite the apparently universal adoption of clean energy, all life other than humanity has disappeared – its places taken by stuffed wallabies, tree holograms and orchard-patterned wallpaper; and all people must die at age 50 to keep their hermetically sealed domes supplied with geometric neon-coloured food.
When his beloved wife Nora (Zsófia Szamosi) has only three hours left to live, conformist psychiatrist Stefan (Tamás Keresztes) searches high and low for anyone who can save her. But when his options narrow to personally rescuing Nora from the mysterious Hades-like ‘Plantation’ beyond the dome, Stefan must confront an existential, mythic horror that even the cannibalism theme does not quite prepare us for.
Eight years in the making, White Plastic Sky is the first feature from Hungarian writer-director-cinematographers Tibor Bánóczki (Milk Teeth) and Sarolta Szabó (Les conquérants), who – alongside New Zealand composer Christopher White (Maya) – deliver a rare, seamless blend of intelligent social commentary and high art.
Daniel MacCannell
This film is F Rated.
