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Kornél Mundruczó: Eastern Europe has completely changed in the last five, eight years. It was true once that we were timeless, melancholic, slow. Almost the opposite is true now. [Europe] is very fast, rough, and extreme. The range between the rich and the poor is bigger, and the whole society is loaded with fear. The economic crisis is gone, but the moral crisis stays.The society elected people out of fear, and the politicians in power reflect that fear back very well. They're against refugees, they're against minorities, they are against anything. It is not open and there's no freedom. We're still a democracy, not a dictatorship, but there's not as much freedom inside.Those elements—racism, chauvinism—they really came up with the economic crisis. And it's very sad for me, as a person of a generation with a huge belief in solidarity and democracy. I wanted to reflect on the crisis, and those elements that rise up with the crisis as well.
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That is the "Hungarian Rhapsody" by Franz Liszt. It's really iconic in Hungary. The nationalists are using him quite a lot, but in a very empty way. He was a revolutionary guy; he believed in freedom. He was a romantic. The real meaning of this music is to fight for your freedom. So the meaning of this music and how the hard ultranationalists use it is a contradiction, a huge contradiction.Did you really use 200 dogs?
No, 250! Two hundred were from the pound, and 50 were the elite group. In the beginning when we started to work with them I thought maybe it was never going to happen, because there were dominance fights between them, and so on. The two trainers, they were genius, they started to use a new method where somehow they socialized them together. That did it. And these were unhappy, aggressive dogs coming out of the dog pound with lots of fear, and at the end they were a really proud, nice batch of dogs.During the shooting we started an adoption program, and they are all with families now. I was not a huge animal rights fighter before this movie. I wasn't facing the problem. Now I am. I would like to be in a society where animals have rights. We all live on the same planet and we all have the same right to live on it.What kind of reception has the film gotten, both in Hungary and all over the world?
This really criticizes our society, so Hungary was really the most fragile territory, but it went very well. We had audiences and lots of discussions, so it was really good.As for all over, it's divided into two [reactions]. Mexico, Turkey, Greece: they identify with the dogs. But in France or in Germany, they are the majority, so they are like "Ach! We are the one's creating these problems." I think it's a question of what perspective you watch the story from. I'm very interested to see what will happen in the US.Follow Hugh Ryan on Twitter.