TIFF 2020 Review: Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time

Title: Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
Year: 2020
Director: Lili Horvat
Country: Hungary
Language: Hungarian

Having seen Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad (1961) earlier in the year, I can confidently say that I am no stranger to weird artsy fartsy European flicks where one person thinks they met, but the other is very confused about the whole ordeal. Directed by Lili Horvat, Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is a weird wild film that will have you scratching your head thinking "what did I just see?" 

Márta (Natassa Stork), a 40-year-old neurosurgeon, falls in love. She leaves her shining American career behind and returns to Budapest to start a new life with the man (Viktor Bedo). But the love of her life claims that they have never met before.

Positioning the story in the same framework as Sylvia Plath's Mad Girl’s Love Song, Horvat's film has a well structured complex script that intelligently dissects themes of memory, temporal deconstruction, time and psychology. It's a fascinating puzzle of a film that drives on suspense & leaves the audience with a sense of awe and wonder. 

The broody exteriors of budapest are gorgeously shot by cinematographer Róbert Maly. The scenes around the city, mainly of Marta following her man, remind me of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Infact the atmosphere of engima entrapped within this picture will make one wonder if this is a similar feature about obsession. Horvat is careful to not reveal to much, and the actress (Stork) does a phenomenal job at making us wonder about if she's a reliable narrator. 

A film like Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is bound to polarize viewers. At Venice the film received high praise; in Toronto not too many people are feeling it. A common criticism is that the ending is too neatly wrapped up, and doesn't satisfy, but I suspect there is more at play. Though I have not seen any other film of Lili Horvat's , based on this picture alone she seems to be a master film-maker.