Treasure City is an enchanting ensemble tale of a Hungarian city at twilight | Film of the Week

The mere concept of Treasure City is ambitious: 22 characters, 90 minutes, and one night in a Hungarian city. Throughout the film, the audience re-enters the same cafe, rides with the same taxi driver, and boards the same train carriage again and again, yet each time with a different character, as one event unpredictably leads to another. Writer-director Szabolcs Hajdu untangles a knot of intersecting tales in this spellbinding film, where the city is as much a character as its inhabitants. As each individual wanders the moonlit streets, Hajdu’s superbly stylish cinematography magnifies small interactions, resulting in a quiet contemplation of present-day Hungary’s generational and sociopolitical divides. His own presence in the film, as an actor amongst this ensemble, marks the writer-director’s talent for not only crafting dialogue, but also delivering it — resulting in a fleeting but cinematically-beguiling glimpse of a society’s demons as they come out to stalk the streets after sunset.

Watch on Vimeo On Demand from 18 June