Hegyizene

Balázs Szendőfi’s nature film about the Transylvanian Islands, many areas of which are somewhat of a “white spot” both in terms of scientific exploration and in the public consciousness. It is located close to the western border of Romania, and thus also to Hungary, on the border of Partium and Transylvania. The source areas of many rivers, including the Berettyó, the Körösök, the Meleg-Szamos and the Aranyos, are located in the 145-million-year-old mountain range that is concentrated here. It hides the most diverse karst region in Europe, which is completely shaped by water to this day. This is a world of cave entrances twenty-five stories high, caverns yawning at a depth of a hundred meters, underground glaciers, and hidden streams that burst open and fall underground again. The primeval forests, considered among the last in Europe, also hum here.

The landscape speaks in the film, it also speaks to us in reality through the narrator’s voice, and besides presenting an almost improbable, fairy-tale-like wild romance, it openly confronts us with how soullessly and drastically we destroy even the primeval nature of the inaccessible mountains, leaving less of it day by day.

The film’s music is not just background music. As the title suggests, it plays an important role, perhaps equal to the narrator’s, in conveying the message, which cannot be conveyed with words and images alone. The handpan-bass guitar duets of Ákos Fekecs and Balázs Szendőfi underline the scenes, conveying the atmosphere of the Transylvanian island mountains with the soft constancy of the water gurgling between the rocks.