Hungary isn’t exactly the first country one thinks of when one thinks about romance, but this is the country Sós chooses for her focus. The film’s opening shots show the country’s inhabitants to be a hard-working lot, and on first glance they seem like the last person you would interview if you were making a film about attitudes toward love and sex.
Yet it doesn’t seem to take much to convince these women (and some men) to talk about their sex lives. Sós begins the journey with an old man traveling down a rode on a horse and buggy. He coyly explains that of the 25 or so old widows in his village, only three are truly fine.
Then the women start to talk, starting off with fairly innocent stories but soon moving onto some downright raunchy tales. Everything is covered here, from a woman who never stood naked in front of her husband to a widow who found pleasure in masturbation at an old age.
Though the old man and one widow, Veronka, are technically the protagonists of this story, many other men and women get their turn at bat and reveal some hilarious, and sometimes even heartwrenching stories.
It’s these sad stories that shake up the expectations of the audience. The border between funny and sad is paper thin, as demonstrated in one scene where a man recounts the final moments before his wife passes away. A woman talks about how she was the prettiest girl in the village in her youth and attracted nearly every man who laid eyes on her; this narrative takes a dark turn when she reveals a terrible secret.
Though the film doesn’t have a clear structure in terms of a progressing storyline, the ending perfectly ties together the theme of the story as Veronka and her friends do something they hadn’t done since they were young women.
Stream of Love manages to be an eye-opening experience as it sheds light on a segment of the population we generally just don’t think about as capable of the type of romance we see depicted on television and in film.
The film is one of many screening at the 2014 Hot Docs festival, taking place in Toronto from April 24 to May 4, featuring 197 films from 43 countries,
