Meeting Venus

István Szabó (1991)

UK, Japan, USA

Genre: Comedy/Drama/Romance

A great example of truly transnational filmmaking, Meeting Venus features Swede Niels Arestup as a Hungarian conductor, Zoltan Szanto, who, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, comes to Paris to conduct performances of Wagner’s Tannhäuser with an American diva, played by Glenn Close. Whereas the plot evolves around a tempestuous love affair, the most important achievement of the film is the subtle portrayal of the inferiority complex that determines the moves of the Hungarian protagonist. This atmospheric film nicely captures the spirit of the time when East Europeans break the isolation of Cold War times and get exposed to migratory experiences.

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