Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is as beautifully complicated as its title suggests. Viewers are in for a gentle and timeless chronicle of your typical love at first sight romance, packaged neatly around an immersive narrative. Lili Horvát’s time-travelesque tale of dreadful destiny reveals a merciless mental battle between what’s true and faux.
Márta Vizy (Natasha Stork) is very aware of the challenge she’s taking on by upending her shiny American career for a grim 80s’ style hospital in hopes of a haphazard affair. The reverse culture shock quickly dawns on her when she is faced with the reality – and sadly the pinnacle of the proudly state-owned health-care in Hungary. Nevertheless, she seems to unconditionally follow her heart and seemingly unreliable memories of a man. Upon first encountering János Drexler (Viktor Bodó) in Hungary, she is made a fool by the very person who unknowingly pushed her to cross the great pond. She collapses. As we later realise, he pretends the encounter never happened and “she was confusing him with someone else”. As convenient as it sounds at first, the man picks up on her obsession as if it was contagious, and follows her home one day to reminisce about their time in New Jersey.
The attraction between the two lovers seems rather tepid at first, almost as if they are not in control of their feelings and foolish deeds. They are under an other-worldly influence, otherwise known as instincts. The foundation of their platonic relationship nearly collapses under this eerily cold first sighting in Hungary, before they fulfill their calling. Stumbling upon and benefitting from a healing relationship takes time and effort, as Lili Horvát softly proves to us all by the end of the film. They both needed each other at this point in their lives, no matter the sacrifices.
As encapsulating as the story is, some key elements seem to hinder the depth of this tale. During the entirety of the film, the viewer isn’t let in on a lot of details about Márta’s American dream-like life. We are convinced of the medical genius she is when she operates on a Hungarian man and miraculously fixes him against all odds – even after the man’s son specifically requests the head doctor that she shouldn’t dare touch her father. But she has no American – or Hungarian identity for that matter. Márta is a quiet, all-to-herself, highly emotional person.
As if that part of her life was truly irrelevant to us. Perhaps she was never meant to live in the majestic Americas. Her homeland graciously pulled her back at the height of her career, and she did not put up any resistance, at all. She wanted to come back and live in an obscure old building block. Just to have the assumed place of the failed rendezvous within arms’ reach.
The whole affair feels like a metaphor for her desire to move back to Hungary, her obsession with János is a disguise – she was never fully able to escape from her life in Hungary, never got what she truly wanted in America. She came back lacking existential material and sentimental resources – accepting a degrading job, a dark and empty flat, no family or friends to talk to – essentially, Márta exists in a void, being only a shadow of her past self. She attempts to fill this void with János, and him only.
Róbert Maly’s alluring cinematography enhances the message, and deepens our connection with the the staggeringly blue-eyed Márta through encapsulating close-ups and centring his lens around the tension between our two main characters.
The film ascends to a Hitchcockian level of obsession and intrigue, best expressed in Rear Window (1954) and in a similar vein, The Woman in the Window (2021) from Joe Wright. The protagonist is left to battle her mental demons isolated from reality, and in her loud solitude, it is difficult for her to hear the truth, let alone comprehend it.
Overall, Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is an all too familiar tale of obsession at first sight with a hint of love-induced contemplation of what could have been – set against the backdrop of a pale-coloured Eastern European capital.