Sundance 2022: Mars One, Gentle, Klondike | Festivals & Awards

“This sport is about proportions. Balance,” her trainer and boyfriend Ádám (György Turós, a real-life coach of five world champions) tells a fan after Edina wins a place to compete in the world championship. He means balance of strength between the upper and lower body, but the line suggests a greater metaphor between the balance of physical and emotional strength needed to get through life unscathed. 

Lacking a sponsor to pay for training, the couple look for alternative means. Ádám’s nerves get to him during an audition for a strip club, so Edina turns to selling her body to men, not necessarily for intercourse but for fetish purposes. Here she finds an unexpected emotional connection that throws her off this much sought out balance. Csaba Krisztik is wonderful as her lover Krisztián, though his professional acting style sometimes feels incongruous with Csonka’s naturalism.

Similar to last year’s adult film drama “Pleasure,” co-directors Nemes and Csuja are almost clinical in their depiction of the physicality of bodybuilding. Training sessions are peppered throughout, with Csonka’s body straining and contorting amongst the metal workout equipment, the camera fixated on her bulging muscles and labored breathing. These are contrasted with shots of a more serene Edina in nature, finding a peace she lacks in her professional life. A shot of her head laying amongst hundreds of baby chicks could easily feel cheesy, but Csonka’s beguiling tranquility makes it transcendent.

Although beats of the film sometimes veer a little too close to Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” the filmmakers’ reverence for what makes bodybuilding a unique sport and Csonka’s captivating performance keep “Gentle” on its own distinct path. 

Conversely, writer/director Maryna Er Gorbach’s Ukrainian drama “Клондайк (Klondike)” starts not with a whimper, but with a bang. Set in the early days of the Donbas war and inspired by the true crash of flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, in which 280 passengers and 15 crew members were killed, the life of an expectant couple changes irrevocably as the war creeps literally into their living room.