Dealer (I) (2004) User Reviews

Claustrophobic story of a drug dealer and his clients

[rasecz · 8/10 · 26 November 2006]

A day in the life of a drug dealer. We stay with the young man from the moment he wakes up until the next morning. The story is constructed principally around episodes, each dealing with a client or a visit to a friend or family member. Chronological order is followed without flashbacks. A couple of the episodes become interlocked threads that provide the core of the dramatic tension. The episodes run over a wide gamut of situations. From the darkly comic to the heart wrenching.

Location is some undefined large city. The urban landscape is modern and sterile, eerily devoid of people and crowds. The state apparatus and its authorities nowhere to be seen and only implied from dialogue. The film traffics only in the dealer, the junkies that he supplies, and a few friends and relatives. The issue of drug addiction, primarily heroin, is dealt in a level-headed fashion, almost matter-of-fact. Nonetheless, the burden of addiction on the individual, friends and relatives is not hidden.

The primary technique used throughout is circular tracking. The camera circles around characters, often a few times in a single take. Combined with a heavy use of close-ups, the overall experience is claustrophobic. The siege of the camera on the characters enhances the feeling they are prisoners of their unfortunate conditions.

The visual texture is that of a noir, though the dominant hue is blue, dark blue. Reds and greens are rarely seen. This color choice overlaid on a modernistic architecture and a spartan decor give the story a futuristic feel, a sort of post-industrial dysfunctional society where seeing a person smash a car's windshield on the highway or the presence of a dead man's body on a bridge with no police in sight does not seem to raise much of an eyebrow from passersby.

All of this is enveloped by a deep echo chamber meditative music. The events of the day keep piling up into a general sense of pointlessness. There is no promise of anything better for next day's aurora, only another cycle of the same. The only escape for the dealer is a closure of a kind.

Promising

[ccscd212 · 7/10 · 21 September 2004]

I'm not terribly familiar with contemporary Hungarian cinema, but from what I gather Dealer appears to be the work of one of its most promising figures. Cinematography, rhythm (to some extent), nuances, symbolism; Fliegauf seems to have a grasp of all of these. Dealer isn't a masterpiece in my mind, though.

The acting is far from impeccable at parts. For example, when the dealer's female friend is talking to her boyfriend on the phone, you don't even get the impression that someone else is on the other line. You sense that the actor is more concerned with her English than playing her part. And even though the dealer's emasculate voice reflects a person not much less fragile than those he provides drugs to, I'm still not sure if the actor possesses all the brooding characteristics required for the role. The parts with his father and supposed child work to a tee, however.

As for the film being too long or too slow, I disagree. Still, a few more rhythmic change-ups would've been welcome. The dialogue reminded me a bit of Kaurismäki with its subtle humor and focus on only what's essential. The Tarkovski comparisons aren't far-fetched, either; with the ending striking up images of Solaris. Another Tarkovski-like trait the director has is his willingness to let things take their time. These precious moments when "nothing happens" allow the viewer to reflect on what he's seen and what's yet to come. The ambiance, the colors, the streets of the city the dealer travels by bike, and the way the director explores his theme, all of these assure that Dealer will stay with me for a while. Extra points for the song that closes the film.

Shades of Tarkovsky

[zoelat · 10/10 · 9 August 2004]

During the 1980's, no director fascinated me and often frustrated me more than Tarkovsky, the Russian who added a new dimension to the viewing requirements of an audience. His wonderful "Solaris", his incredibly slow and drawn-out "Stalker", his magnificent "Andrei Rublev" and his demanding and enigmatic "Sacrifice" were all noteworthy in that no-one who saw any of them could, I believe, ever forget them, as the viewer grappled, for years to come, on what Tarkovsky had sought and/or achieved. With "Dealer", we have the movie which has probably the best soundtrack I have encountered. The purr of a cat fills the theatre with stereo magnificence and a "whistling wind" sounds backgrounds almost every minute of the movie. It never dominates the story, but it enhances the slow deliberation on the ever-swirling camera, which advances and retreats on the actor and which is a marvelous call for intense concentration by the viewer. An audience who was not prepared to concentrate would probably call "Dealer" too slow or ponderous; absolutely not!: it shows the true poetry of cinema which is all too rarely encountered. Full marks to the director and the actors for creating what I consider one of the best movies I have seen in years...and I see a huge number of movies.

THE dealer

[filipko_nemeth · 10/10 · 2 March 2005]

This film really is pretty slow, but the atmosphere is so strong and depressive, that it simply can't be boring. I enjoyed every second of the movie and I really love the slow camera movement and the concrete, although not naturalistic dialogues. In this things nothing is showed as we can see it in the real life, but at the same time, everything in this film is completely true. The things work, and they are seen from a completely different point of view as in other drug-films. This film really shows a prototype of a new dealer. We can't talk about characters, they are prototypes, but they are made perfectly. The mood of the film is fascinating, meditating and exciting. Those bizarre sounds... I mean, in this film, everything is in it's right place, I've never seen another so clear and original film, with a complex view of a problem. This is why I love this movie.

Dark brilliance like the Mass Onyx that brought this curse to our cultures.

[thelastpict1107 · 10/10 · 20 June 2013]

This has to be one of the finest films I have ever seen. Not the Hollywood propaganda regurgitated kosher crap, but a dark expose of a subject long overdue for some sunlight. But be warned though, this film doesn't put bangles and lipstick on a monkey and call her Sally; its an artists and philosophers film about a tragic aspect of modern society our psychopathic leaders profit from while playing dumb. It is definitely not for the shallow thinkers, or someone seeking light entertainment. To anyone who has walked in the shoes this film portrays, either via a family member or personally, the genius of this film will be readily apparent and chill you to the bone. The actors, mainly 1st timers were all superb. Shot in Buda and Pest, Hungary should be proud of this one. It is a very sadly magnificent film.

Artificial

[requests-1 · 1 November 2004]

Gradually, I've come to appreciate slowness in cinema. I'm getting sort of fed up with action-packedness, video clip-like editing and the fact that if for ten seconds no one speaks on the screen the audience starts chatting, because obviously, there is nothing important going on.

However, I do not think much of this film of Fliegauf Benedek. I appreciated hist last piece (Rengeteg), I liked it's sketch-based structure, the amateur freshness of acting and especially the language, which is farther to the artistic, created language of the Hungarian cinema in the last couple of decades than anything I've seen for a long time. Now, in Dealer all this are present, but they rather work against the movie. The actors are terribly, incredibly bad (consider Barbara or the mathematician girl). If this is conscious than it is simply BAD. The language is terribly artificial - and there is no meaning for this at all. They usually quote that Dealer is slow and beautiful. I think, you have to be a very good director to be able to direct a slow film that works. For me this wasn't slow, but boring. I reckon, I understand why he wanted to make it so slow, but then there has to be something else to keep the movie alive - most favorably actors. Who act. All in all, I think this film is repulsively artificial, pretentious and pretty much forced.

Boring and political

[psiloidus · 3/10 · 10 December 2005]

You might like Fliegauf's "Dealer" maybe if you haven't seen his earlier films. They are all clones, of which "Dealer" is at least the 4th of a kind, the others being "Is there life before death?", "Talking Heads" and "Rengeteg". His films use the same schema: extremely long close-ups of monologues. You can call this a "personal style", but it is also a trade-off for creativity and experimenting.

The reason why "Dealer" has been so successful in Hungary and elsewhere is probably because the issue of drugs is overpoliticised and it has been de facto taboo. In the last decade or so there have been very few Hungarian films on this topic, all of them were depicting drugs (undifferentiatedly) as the ultimate evil. "Dealer" certainly has a different approach, because it makes you mostly laugh at, and/or - to a lesser extent - feel sorry for drug users, whereas the other movies were intended mostly to make you hate drugs (and/or - to a lesser extent - also feel sorry for drug users). So this movie suits for both pro-drug and anti-drug people, because of not making any clear statements about the issue. It is yet to be seen whether Fliegauf or any other Hungarian director could make an intelligent and socially significant impact on the issue of drugs in Hungary.

perhaps the strongest film of this decade

[stamatakiskostas · 10/10 · 16 April 2006]

"The Dealer" is a revolutionary movie which i had the luck to watch in a theater, and not in a DVD (i think it's going to be released on April of 2006). I believe that's why i manage to recognize it's unique atmosphere and photograph. From the beginning till the end, "Dealer" and ourselves become one, even if we do not identify on everything. His actions, his thoughts are not represented in the film but inside the viewers. I believe it's one of the few times someone skipped the dialogs and preferred thinking. What starts as small self-discovering for the "Dealer" soon transforms and becomes as a personal renaissance. Love and vanity, apathy and affection, this endless battle between them, is the main core of this movie A brilliant presentation, a modern philosophical play...

Apart from directing and the photograph, "The Dealer" presented an extraordinary montage and a unique soundtrack. Modern electro-noise sounds did not just accompany the scenes. Are combined with them!

You have to see it to believe it.

A Naive, Pretentious, Swing and Miss

[katew16 · 1/10 · 9 September 2012]

I'm not really sure where to start with Dealer.

From the first over-indulgent long shot, to the nauseatingly lingering close-ups, this film attempts to present itself as bleak and as agonisingly artistic as possible.

Adding to the miasmic atmosphere is the constant presence of repetitive ambient noise, conjuring images of an over-enthusiastic army of small insects in tap-shoes stampeding through one's ear-canals.

The protagonist, is a dealer who lives in apparent complete ignorance of the simple principles of supply and demand. He appears to spend most of his time riding a bicycle around town forcing his potential clients to justify their need for his product.

We are told the he is an ex-junkie and so the question of relapse is naturally raised. However, the protagonist's bafflingly unfounded self- righteousness leads one to seriously question whether the writer had ever had any contact with the drug-world.

The flagrant disregard for the bounds of belief is quite possibly the result of a series of wild guesses hashed together with government anti- drug commercials and a generous smear of stale, primitive stereotypes.

This movie is an immature, completely misinformed attempt at exposing "the dark side of drugs". This drawn-out, misguided film is yawn-worthy at most. Word to the wise: there is no deal in Dealer.

A very cool film

[sc_trojan · 10 April 2005]

I really loved this movie. I expected it to be odd and slow, knowing that the director was the AD on songs from the second floor which was the weirdest movie I've ever seen. And it didn't disappoint. I loved the camera movement and the sound was perfectly haunting. The main character was incredibly likable if completely perplexing. What made this movie interesting for me were all the odd characters the dealer was forced to deal with. That first scene when he runs into the guy in the tooth outfit was damn funny and just set the stage for a wandering and depressing story. I love that kind of stuff. But the main reason I'm writing this is to ask if anyone knows what song was playing during the credits. I would love to know...