Page - 86 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/02

86 | Charles Martig www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/2, 85–89 What does it signify for you? Well, it has a special importance. exactly what this ecumenical approach is trying to do is what we try to do in every community at any level. it is so heart breaking to see what happens in society. at least for the moment it seams to me that we go for confrontation and accentuate differences. In fact deep down all my films are about the importance of what we can do in our everyday life. What we do in families and communities affects bigger movements of history. How does this interaction take place? We feel that we are just tiny bits of paper floating on the waves. But I think very locally in your life if you try to be sincere to yourself and open to other people around you, you will be much harder to manipulate. In fact, in all my films, beginning with my first film My Twentieth Century (hU 1989) up to On Body and Soul (Hu 2017), the leading idea is that you feel yourself powerless as a person because somebody else is deciding about your destiny instead of you. But this is not the case. What makes the difference? if you do not have access to political power, the way you live makes you more authen- tic. this helps the people around you to be more authentic as well. This is also the theme of your new film On Body and Soul, a love story between two outsiders. yes, it is. Love is the most extreme form of opening up towards another human being. therefore it is good to show this in the form of a love story. But in fact it is about ta- king the risk not to shatter yourself or defend yourself but to be fully present in your life. But you chose a slaughterhouse as the setting for your love story. This is quite unusual. What i realized some years ago is that the structure of everyday life has become very practical. those frames that religion gave to us in the past are emptied. Nobody is turning to them anymore. In this big void everybody wants to be efficient. We want to resolve the situation instead of living through it. i would like to give a simple examp- le. In the past an ordinary meal was not just an occasion to stuff some food in your mouth. it was also about your remembering that you are part of something bigger than yourself. it’s a wonderful thing to be aware of this bigger context. the transcen- dent was very present in everyday routine. This was also the case in your Hungarian context? yes, the same was true for childbirth or marriage, for the death rituals that involved saying goodbye to somebody. today in the hospital you have all the machines and the professional care. But there is no space in there, you really have to force in that