Film: Jupiter's Moon

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it is a flying refugee that you can see on the firmament in Jupiter’s Moon by Kornél Mundruczó. The Hungarian film director mixes spectacle with the refugee crisis and spirituality.

Recognise an established name when you see one. Kornél Mundruczó (Delta, White God) made five consecutive feature films that were selected to be shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. But that hasn’t stopped him from trying new things. In 2014, he staged Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise for Opera Vlaanderen. He is currently preparing Deeper, an American sci-fi film starring Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, American Hustle) en Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman).

His new film – strange enough – is building a bridge between the two projects. Jupiter’s Moon has impressive action scenes like a fight between the trigger-happy Hungarian border police and refugees, a terrorist attack or a spectacular car chase. The central character is a young Syrian refugee who gets shot through by police bullets, but then suddenly turns out to be able to fly. Mundruczó would like us to think of him as an angel, but we’re not far from science fiction.

The refugee crisis has haunted him since he worked at Opera Vlaanderen. His stage direction there included a video installation that he filmed in a Hungarian refugee camp. He is incensed by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s approach to refugees. And yet Jupiter’s Moon is more of an action parable than a refugee drama.

The flying refugee encounters an ultra-cynical doctor hoping to make piles of cash from Hungarians who are desperately looking for a miracle like a refugee who can fly and is as innocent as an angel. But this film is fundamentally more about the doctor than about the angel. He gradually comes to see the light and evolves from being an unbeliever to being selfless. Think what you will of this epiphany/reflection on Europe with plenty of B-movie elements and action scenes, but one thing is certain: you’ll never get bored in mundo Mundruczó.

> Jupiter's Moon. HU, dir.: Kornél Mundruczó, act.: Merab Ninidze, Zsombor Jéger, György Cserhalmi