Now you see me. Now you don't.

Most látszom, most nem látszom (2005)
‘Now You See Me, Now You Don't’ (English title)

A short film from Hungary in Hungarian.

Starring Vitéz Ábrahám, Ernõ Fekete, Dóra Létay, and directed by Attila Szász.

A mother (Dóra Létay) goes about her daily routine of tending to the house and watching after her son (Vitéz Ábrahám). When dad (Ernõ Fekete) returns form the lab, Mom notices that their son is now gone but, she can still hear him.

‘Now You See Me, Now You Don't’ is totally not what I expected and that is its greatest strength. It has the appearance of being everything from one of Rod Serling’s ‘Twilight Zones’ to M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Sixth Sense’. Attila Szász directing and writing tackle a vast mountain of parental problems all the while dancing around the plot of where is little Alex? Is he invisible? Is there another child we, the audience, haven’t seen yet? Who’s staying in that bedroom? Why can the mother hear him and feel him but yet she sees nobody? For a short film (30 minutes) Szász told a tale worthy of ‘The Twilight Zone’. Messing with your head both emotionally and physically, the ride was similar to that of a Rod Serling tale.

The cinematography by Tamás Keményffy is beautiful. Whether the light is natural or not it reminded me of the lighting Spielberg used in ‘E.T.’. His compositions not only gave the mother an angelic quality, but Keményffy gave the father a twisted darker side as well. Keményffy cinematography also made you believe things were there that actually weren’t. Again confusing the audience to what type of story we were witnessing. His cinematography played perfectly into the whole guessing the genre/ figuring out the story delight that ‘Now You See Me, Now You Don't’ was.

The flashback focusing on particular moments was not necessary in a short film; maybe for a longer film, but not thirty minutes. I think this has become the crutch of many Hollywood filmmakers, especially with how dumb the audience is now getting. The argument could be made that the filmmaker has to put this sequence of shots in again to prove to the audience he did have all the clues there, you just needed to see the whole picture first to figure out how they all fit.

The film doesn’t end with a big twist; instead it goes out on a breath of hope and moment of understanding and love. My hope is that Szász starts making bigger and longer films. The world has a need for an auteur, like Szász. Not only does he entertain the audience he makes them think as well.

You can see the trailer on his MySpace page at: http://www.myspace.com/attilaszasz