Film Recommendation – Aurora Borealis: Northern Light

Mari Törőcsik in Aurora Borealis: Northern Light (2017)
Márta Mészáros, one of the most acclaimed female directors in Hungarian cinema, intertwines personal and cultural memory in her latest film (to date), Aurora Borealis: Northern Light (2017), by positioning an elderly woman as the catalyst of reminiscence. A film, which has close ties to the history of Hungarian cinema itself, acts as a companion piece to Mészáros’ Golden Bear-winner Adoption (1975), thematising non-biological mother-daughter relationships, parenthood and female agency. In addition, Aurora Borealis presents legendary actress Mari Törőcsik – whom global film audiences might know from Merry-Go-Round (1956) and Mrs. Dery Where Are You? (1975) – in her last film role, portraying Mária, a woman in her 80s, filled with secrets of a deeply traumatic past.
After receiving a letter written in Russian, Mária falls into a coma. Her daughter, Olga (Ildikó Tóth), who lives in Vienna, travels back to Hungary to take care of her mother. Upon waiting for Mária’s unlikely awakening, Olga – at first solely motivated by her son’s demand – starts to delve into the family’s history marked by emigration and the atrocities of the Soviet Union – the latter displayed both in socialist Hungary and allied-occupied Vienna. As Olga attempts to investigate the past, more anomalies unravel. In the meantime, Mária wakes up from her coma and initially acts reluctant in the face of Olga’s questions. Ultimately, Mária’s willingness to tell her story leads to the dissolution of mysteries, nevertheless, her confession rips up old wounds that shake Olga’s identity to its core.
Aurora Borealis develops a two-thread narrative in which the scenes of the present are combined with flashbacks from 1953 – here, Mária is portrayed by Franciska Törőcsik. Although the sujet presents either glimpses or entire scenes from the past, the fabula of the past becomes clear after Mária decides to disclose these events with Olga. Thus, Mészáros’ film enhances the aged character’s agency, her right to share her story. And this story cannot be comprehended through official records or witnesses, as they represent fragmented, even misleading sources. Taking into consideration the film’s closeness to melodramatic tones and its inclination toward symbolic storytelling, Mária’s health problems can be understood as trauma reactions. The coma acts as a bodily reaction highlighting the elderly woman’s shock and her determination to remain silent, to bury the traumas inside herself. Furthermore, Mária’s awakening and recovery can be decoded as her body’s urge to share these meticulously concealed traumatic experiences. Hence, her health issues that occur on the borderline between Third and Fourth age are not to be contextualized in terms of age and decline, but in terms of body and trauma – validating Mária’s position as an abuse survivor.
In addition, Aurora Borealis constructs an intimate relation between memory and time, emphasizing the timelessness of certain events (both traumatic and joyous), and their ever-present existence in Mária’s life, both at young and old age. The effortless permeability between past and present – offered by the film’s narrative and editing – enhances this aspect convincingly, but the most palpable witness of this timelessness is nature itself. Two outdoor settings prove to be crucially relevant in this context. One is a thermal lake in Hungary, which is visited by Mária’s young and old self, and also by Olga. The lake represents Mária’s unchanging love for Ákos, who died in 1953 when the couple attempted to cross the Hungarian-Austrian border. The other meaningful location is in Russia, in the port city of Murmansk, where the mesmerizing natural phenomenon of aurora borealis is present. Due to Mária’s confession, we learn that Olga’s biological father is from this region. In a flashback scene, we also hear Olga’s father speak about the wonderful scenery of the northern lights. Ultimately, Olga arrives at the aurora borealis of Murmansk, sharing this moment of awe (metaphysically) with her late father. Nature, once again, seems to be timeless, connecting past and present, lost father and daughter.
Considering from a broader perspective, Aurora Borealis reflects on a notable tendency in contemporary Eastern-European cinema, namely that old age characters might appear as gatekeepers of cultural memory and national trauma, prompting narratives with multiple timelines. Besides Márta Mészáros’ film, one might think of another Hungarian film, Mom and Other Loonies in the Family (Ibolya Fekete, 2015) or a Romanian film, A Love Story, Lindenfeld (Radu Gabrea, 2014), which follow a similar storytelling pattern. Overall, Aurora Borealis gains cultural relevance not only for encapsulating legendary Mari Törőcsik’s last screen performance but also because it presents an aged woman, who possesses complete authority over her memories and finds reconciliation after decades of secrecy.
Written by: Boglárka Angéla Farkas
Image credit: Aurora Borealis: Northern Light (Aurora Borealis: Északi fény), directed by Márta Mészáros, produced by Filmteam Kft. and Nordic Productions, 2017.