Bubble Bath [Blu-ray]

Bubble Bath Blu-ray marks the first-ever U.S. release of György Kovásznai’s astonishing 1979 animated musical, one of the most singular and personal works to emerge from the Hungarian New Wave. Restless, erotic, funny, and emotionally raw, the film defies easy categorization, existing somewhere between animated confession, musical fantasia, and existential romantic comedy.

Zsolt, a neurotic shop-window decorator gripped by panic over his impending marriage, bursts into the apartment of Anikó, his fiancée’s best friend. What follows is not a conventional love triangle, but a free-flowing exploration of doubt, desire, and self-delusion, expressed through constantly shifting animation styles and musical numbers. Zsolt’s anxious, countercultural energy collides with Anikó’s poised uncertainty as both characters wrestle with the lives they’ve chosen and the futures they fear.

Visually, Bubble Bath is in constant motion, blending Art Deco design, psychedelic abstraction, and late-1970s decadence into a kaleidoscopic whole. Its musical structure and elastic animation place it in conversation with the work of Ralph Bakshi and Bill Plympton, yet the film remains unmistakably Kovásznai’s own. Tragically, this was the director’s only feature film; he died of leukemia just a few years after its release. Beautifully restored by Hungary’s National Film Institute, Bubble Bath finally receives the international recognition it deserves through this definitive Blu-ray edition from Deaf Crocodile.

directed by: györgy kovásznai
starring: kornél gelley, vera venzcel, albert antalffy, kati bontovits
1979 / 80 min

Language: Hungarian
Audio: Stereo
Subtitles: English
Discs: 1