{"id":31697,"date":"2026-09-23T16:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T15:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=31697"},"modified":"2026-09-23T14:29:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T13:29:02","slug":"two-short-films-by-istvan-orosz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2026\/09\/23\/two-short-films-by-istvan-orosz\/","title":{"rendered":"Two short films by Istv\u00e1n Orosz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/titles.jpg\" alt=\"titles.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hungarian artist Istv\u00e1n Orosz has directed fifteen short animated films to date, and co-directed three more, yet he&#8217;s known more for his drawings than his films, especially those works which follow MC Escher by combining a careful graphic technique with an exploration of optical illusion. Orosz&#8217;s artistic interests naturally extend to his animations which have never been easy to see online despite so many of them being relatively recent productions.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/garden-big.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/garden.jpg\" alt=\"garden.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rarefilmm.com\/2026\/08\/a-kert-1993\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>A Kert<\/em><\/a> (<em>The Garden<\/em>, 1993) is a recent arrival at Rarefilmm where it&#8217;s possible to watch it on the web page but it should really be seen at a large size in order to appreciate the texture of the engraved visuals. In previous posts I&#8217;ve highlighted some of the many examples of films which animate engraved illustrations. Orosz does the same here but with a unique difference in the way he makes his original drawing match the appearance of the collaged artwork. The whole thing is beautifully done, as is the story itself, in which a small boy explores a mysterious garden in the home of an equally mysterious woman.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/drawer-big.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/drawer.jpg\" alt=\"drawer.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Gpuq1hbYejU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>A rajzol\u00f3<\/em><\/a> (<em>The Drawer<\/em>, 2016) has been on YouTube for a while but I&#8217;d missed it in the past which suggests I ought to make a more determined search for Orosz&#8217;s other films. Pencil drawing is the subject but <em>The Sketcher<\/em> might be a more suitable English translation of the title, &#8220;drawer&#8221; giving the impression that we&#8217;ll be watching a film about furniture. This one is a simpler in style than <em>The Garden<\/em> although vaguely related, with both films concerning characters whose true nature is only revealed at the very end. There&#8217;s also a nod to Orosz&#8217;s optical illusions in the tesselated pavement, and in the mazes which are a recurrent feature of his own drawings.<\/p>\n<p>Previously on { feuilleton }<br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2025\/03\/05\/mazes-a-film-by-istvan-orosz\/\">Mazes, a film by Istv\u00e1n Orosz<\/a><br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2009\/04\/01\/false-perspective\/\">False perspective<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hungarian artist Istv\u00e1n Orosz has directed fifteen short animated films to date, and co-directed three more, yet he&#8217;s known more for his drawings than his films, especially those works which follow MC Escher by combining a careful graphic technique with an exploration of optical illusion. Orosz&#8217;s artistic interests naturally extend to his animations which have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2026\/09\/23\/two-short-films-by-istvan-orosz\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Two short films by Istv\u00e1n Orosz&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: Two short films by Istv\u00e1n Orosz","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[52,2,1029,7],"tags":[308,216],"class_list":["post-31697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animation","category-art","category-collage","category-film","tag-istvan-orosz","tag-mc-escher"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-8ff","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31698,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31697\/revisions\/31698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}