Camera d’Or Year 12 (1989): Hungarian Ildikó Enyedi’s Sci-Fi Dramedy, “My 20th Century”

Ildikó Enyedi wrote and directed My 20th Century, a Hungarian sci-fi dramedy, which won the Camera d’Or award at the 1989 Cannes Film Fest.

My 20th Century
Film poster

The film was selected as the Hungarian entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, but was not nominated.

In Budapest in 1880, twin sisters Dóra and Lili support themselves by selling matches in the street. When they fall asleep one night, two men take their matches and, after a coin flip, each takes a girl and they go their separate ways.

On New Year’s Eve 1900, Dóra, a drifter, finds herself aboard the Orient Express trying to scam two men out of money. Meanwhile, in Austria, Lili, now a revolutionary, boards the train where she is briefly seen by Dóra, who is drunk and forgets her.

At a library, Lili encounters Z, a man staring at her intensely. He falls in love with her, but Lili, who is carrying a bomb which she plans to use to kill the interior minister, remains focused on her politics.

Z encounters Dóra on a ship, and believing her to be Lili, he gives her the number of his cabin where she robs him.

Lili, who had previously sexually rejected Z, apologizes to him. Believing that Lili is apologizing for robbing him, Z takes her to his apartment and they have sex. The following evening Lili attacks the minister with a bomb, but after looking into his eyes she blows out the bomb and runs away. Seeking refuge from the police, Lili hides in a fun house where she sees Dóra. Z finds his way there as well and briefly sees them together before the two run away from him.

Enyedi’s film has the capacity to make ideas that are now familiar seem new again, and to imbue them with the sense of wonder and magic that they once held.

This mischievous fairy tale established Enyedi’s reputation as an early pioneer of female sci-fi cinema and a master of labyrinthian storytelling.

Embraced by critics, the film was perceived as a whimsical erotic fantasia, a millennial meditation on modernity, infused with the spirit of early cinema.

My 20th Century is included in Mark Cousins’ documentary “Women Make Film.” In the Sci-Fi episode, the narrator states that the film is “one of the most unusual in the sci-fi genre, going beyond future or parallel worlds, places of escape or veiled versions of our own malaise, showing that sci-fi has no bounds.”

Cast
Dorota Segda – Dóra / Lili / Anya (as Dorotha Segda)
Oleg Yankovskiy – Z
Paulus Manker – Otto Weininger
Péter Andorai – Thomas Edison
Gábor Máté – K
Gyula Kéry – ékszerész (as Kéri Gyula)
Andrej Schwartz – Segéd
Sándor Téri – Huszár (as Téry Sándor)
Sándor Czvetkó – Young anarchist
Endre Koronczi – Liftboy
Ágnes Kovács & Eszter Kovács – Baby twins