A tale of twin girls, Dóra and Lili, who are born in 1880 Budapest at the same moment Thomas Edison presents his electric lightbulb to the world. The sisters are soon orphaned and separated in childhood, and follow different paths: one grows up to be a naïvely idealistic, bomb-toting anarchist, the other a pampered, hedonistic courtesan. Their paths cross once again on the Orient Express on New Year's Eve 1899...
Dorota Segda has a go at some entertaining multi-tasking in this enjoyable thriller about the different paths taken by two poverty-stricken orphans whom we first meet trying to sell matches in the depths of a snowy winter in Budapest. They are identical twins "Dóra" and "Lili" who happened to be born just as Thomas Edison demonstrated his first ever light bulb. They are very close until separated - unwillingly - with one embarking on a more privileged life and the other taking a more onerous route to adulthood. Both, though, have one thing in common - they can think on their feet. "Dòra" just loves to fleece the wealthy and dim aristocracy who are enamoured of her charm and beauty; "Lili" on the other hand hates the whole concept of that entitled society and is very ready with a fizzing bomb to bring their whole edifice crashing down. Many years later, the two are unexpectedly reunited on the Orient Express thanks to the enigmatic "Z" (Oleg Yankovskiy) and what ensues is quite a playful exercise in sibling reconciliation via a fairly circuitous route! I thought the delicate imagery had something of the von Sternberg to it. The monochrome camerawork simply loving the vulnerability of Segda's characters one minute, then enticing the mischief from her the next. The dialogue is actually quite sparing, but what there is manages to take a swipe at a society of the have and the have nots as well as those who ply their trade capitalising on the vanity (or hormones) of the would-be sophisticates. On the face of it, the narrative can look a bit of a mess but I thought auteur Ildikó Enyedi managed to knit the threads together quite agreeably.
