Electra, My Love movie storyline. Electra is oppressed by Aegisthus, the tyrant who fifteen years earlier murdered her father, Agamemnon, in a power grab. Electra is therefore filled with the urge to kill Aegisthus, along with all the other people who support his tyrannical regime. In order to humiliate Electra the tyrant forces her to marry a dwarf.
Now Electra’s brother, Orestes, arrives back from abroad, disguised as a messenger reporting the death of Orestes. Electra kills him but he comes back to life. Electra and Orestes join together with the people to get rid of the tyrant who killed their father. They capture Aegisthus in a net, torture him, and have him shot.
A red helicopter lands: the siblings climb into it and fly off. The unexpected intrusion of twentieth century technology highlights the extent to which timeless political themes from a two thousand year old Greek myth continue to resonate inescapably for an audience in twentieth century Hungary.
Electra (Mari Töröcsik), My Love (Hungarian: Szerelmem, Elektra) is a 1974 Hungarian drama film directed by Miklós Jancsó. It was included in the official selection for the 1975 Cannes Film Festival. Like most of Jancsó’s films, this one uses extremely long takes, often as long as the camera would allow without stopping because of the film stock finishing. The entire 70 minute duration is covered by just twelve takes.
The story is set in an archaic and mythical world in which a tyrant faces rebellion by the down-trodden. It is based on a play by László Gyurk which premiered in Budapest in 1968, and which itself reinterpreted the Greek myth of Electra.
Filming actually took place in the Puszta grasslands, not far from Kunszentmiklós. A striking visual theme of the film is the shots of naked women, standing in rows in the background of the main action, or dancing. Each day during the filming, 500 film extras were collected from Budapest and taken by a special train and then in buses to the rural filming location.
Despite not being paid for the overtime involved, they earned more as film extras than from working in a factory or shop. Often Jancsó would use the entire day for testing out different possibilities, but the filming itself (using Kodak film) took relatively little time. Most of the planned sequences were shot four or five times. The dialogues were retrospectively added and synchronised by the actors: final editing took just one day.
Electra, My Love (1974)
Directed by: Miklós Jancsó
Starring: Mari Töröcsik, György Cserhalmi, József Madaras, Mária Bajcsay, Lajos Balázsovits, József Bige, Tamás Cseh, György Delianisz, Balázs Galkó, Gabi Jobba, Tamás Jordán
Screenplay by: László Gyurkó, Gyula Hernádi
Production Design by: Tamás Banovich
Cinematography by: János Kende
Film Editing by: Zoltán Farkas
Costume Design by: Zsuzsa Vicze
Set Decoration by: Andrásné Kiss
Music by: Tamás Cseh
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Mokép (Hungary) (theatrical)
Release Date: December 12, 1974
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