BUBBLE BATH (1979)
Label: Dead Crocodile
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 80 Minutes 6 Seconds
Audio: Hungarian PCM 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullcreen (1.37:1)
Director: György Kovásznai
Cast: Kornél Gelley, Vera Venzcel, Albert Antalffy, Kati Bontovits, Katalin Dobos, Lenke Lorán, Anna Papp, Arany Szögi
BUBBLE BATH (HABFÜRDÖ) - 1979, 79 min. Hungarian director György Kovásznai's wildly idiosyncratic animated musical is one of the most indescribably strange, personal and totally irresistible cartoon features ever made. Shop window decorator Zsolt (voiced by Kornél Gelley, with Albert Antalffy singing) bursts into the apartment of his fiancée's best friend Anikó (voiced by Vera Venzcel, with Kati Bontovits singing), paralyzed with fear at his impending marriage. Zsolt is like an anxious hippie alley cat, or an Eastern European Frank Zappa in a tux; medical student Anikó a more curvaceous and leggy post-modern Betty Boop - and both unsure of their attraction to each other, of the choices they've made, of what life has in store for them. A truly insane and surprisingly sexy mash-up of styles, from 1920s Art Deco to 1960s Psychedelia to late 1970s louche Roxy Music decadence, BUBBLE BATH is incredibly restless and creative, the bohemian love-child of Bill Plympton's off-kilter individualism and Ralph Bakshi's wonderfully warped, rubbery visual style. In other words: it's not quite like any animated film you've ever seen before. Sadly, this was director and animator Kovásznai's only feature film after making a number of brilliant cartoon shorts at Pannónia filmstúdio -- he died of leukemia in 1983 shortly after its release. BUBBLE BATH has been beautifully restored by the National Film Institute in Hungary for its first-ever U.S. release by Deaf Crocodile. In Hungarian with English subtitles.
Audio/Video: Review coming soon!
Special Features:
- New Audio Commentary track by film historian Samm Deighan
- 16-Page New essay by film historian and professor Jennifer Lynde Barker
- Interview with BUBBLE BATH Composer János Másik (2021, 7 min)
- “Restoring BUBBLE BATH” – (2021, 9:01), dir. Yvonne Kerékgyártó. A fascinating look at the restoration of this Hungarian animated classic
- 5 rare Short Films by György Kovásznai: Monologue (19:63, 12:21), Metamorphosis (1964, 6:43), Wavelengths (1970, 9:48), Nights in the Boulevard (1972, 9:04), A Memory of Summer 1974 (1974, 9:53)
- Blu-ray authoring by David - Mackenzie of Fidelity In Motion.
Sales Points
For fans of ALLEGRO NON TROPPO, SPIKE & MIKE'S TWISTED ANIMATION and Ralph Bakshi.
Rarely seen, but groundbreaking animated film of the Hungarian New Wave
A gallopingly neurotic modernist-psychedelic musical from 1979 that bubbles and pulsates with anxieties about modernity ... With characters and settings constantly warping, tilting and transmogrifying, BUBBLE BATH is visually something special; like Van Gogh, Fleischer Studios, Robert Crumb, YELLOW SUBMARINE and the abstract-thought section of Pixar's INSIDE OUT smooshed into a great lysergic battenberg cake.
—Phil Hoad, The Guardian
The rediscovered Covasnai is becoming more and more known, popular and clearly has a great influence on new devotees of the animation profession
—Galaczi Zsófia, Filmtett
Screenshots from the Deaf Crocodile Blu-ray:
Buy it!
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