All my movies are comedies, except The Turin Horse

„The landscape seems to become more and more important to you as well.

The landscape is one of the main characters. The landscape has a face. We have to find the right location, like we have to find the right music. That’s why I need the music before shooting, because music is also one of the main characters.

Then came Satantango ('94). How were you able to get it made?

Damnation went to the Berlin Film Festival, but in Hungary everybody hated it. The politicians hated it, and they told me very clearly that I could not make movies in Hungary any more. We moved to Berlin, and lived there. When we were there, the wall fell down. Afterward, I went back to Hungary, and started to make Satantango. (...)

Your first non-comedy, The Turin Horse. How did it originate?

When I first met Laszlo, it was 1985. We just started to talk, and became friends. Once he had a lecture in a theater, and in closing he read this Nietzsche anecdote, but he added this question about what happened to the horse. After this moment, we would always discuss, from time to time, what happened with the horse? We always came back to that question. I decided after The Man From London that it was over, that I was going to close the shop. But I was thinking and talking with Laszlo, this is our debt. We have to answer this question, »What happened with the horse?« We talked about it, and I knew it would be my last movie. (...)

Your films have some of the greatest boozing scenes in history, what do you yourself get out of drinking?

A kind of joy. And of course it is part of human life. We have to show the joy. The quality of the joy comes through much more clearly and the quality of the life.”