''Magic Hunter'' ( hu, Bűvös vadász, ger, Freischütz) is a 1994 Hungarian-Swiss-French
fantasy film written and directed by
Ildikó Enyedi
Ildikó Enyedi (; born 15 November 1955) is a Hungarian film director and screenwriter. Her 2017 film '' On Body and Soul'' won the top prize at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival and went on to be nominated for a Foreign Language Acad ...
and loosely inspired to the opera
Der Freischütz
' ( J. 277, Op. 77 ''The Marksman'' or ''The Freeshooter'') is a German opera with spoken dialogue in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind, based on a story by Johann August Apel and Friedrich Laun from their 18 ...
.
The film was entered into the main competition at the
51st edition of the
Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...
.
Plot
Cast
*
Gary Kemp
Gary James Kemp (born 16 October 1959) is an English singer, songwriter, musician and actor, best known as the lead guitarist, backing vocalist, and principal songwriter for the New Romantic band Spandau Ballet.
Kemp wrote the lyrics and music ...
as Max
*
Sadie Frost
Sadie Liza Frost (née Vaughan; born 19 June 1965) is an English actress, producer and fashion designer, who ran fashion label Frost French (until its closure in 2011) and a film production company (Blonde to Black Pictures).
Early life
Frost ...
as Eva
*
Alexander Kaidanovsky Alexander Leonidovich Kaidanovsky (russian: Алекса́ндр Леони́дович Кайдано́вский; 23 July 1946 — 3 December 1995) was a Soviet and Russian actor and film director.
His best known roles are in films such as ''At H ...
as Maxim
* Péter Vallai as Kaspar
*
Mathias Gnädinger
Mathias Gnädinger (25 March 1941 – 3 April 2015) was a Swiss stage and film actor.
Career
Initially a typesetter and typographer, Gnädinger began his acting training at the ''Bühnenstudio Zürich'' (now part of the Zurich University of ...
as Police Chief
* Alexandra Wasscher as Lili
*
Ildikó Tóth as Lina
* Natalie Conde as Virgin Mary
*
Zoltán Gera as Shoemaker
* Philippe Duclos as Monk
* Andor Lukáts as One-Eyed Monk
Reception
Film critic Stephen Holden described it as "an unwieldy stylistic hybrid of narrative film making and arty montage" and as "klutzy and vague in its symbolic connections". ''
Deseret News critic Jeff Vice noted that "Enyedi has an interesting visual style, but she's too busy to concentrate on the storyline". According to Barbara Shulgasser, "Enyedi's visuals, shot by Tibor Mathe, are often beautiful enough to distract you from narrative failings".
References
External links
*
1995 fantasy films
English-language Hungarian films
Films directed by Ildikó Enyedi
Hungarian fantasy films
Films based on operas
1990s English-language films
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