Bubble Bath

I cannot understate how much I love this film. My third time watching it, more and more of the film reveals itself to me and more easily do I feel I can articulate what I felt watching it on previous times, more readily available to talk about its themes and how it approaches them through the medium of animation. Bubble Bath opens with Zsolt, an artist, speeding through the streets in a car, rushing past traffic and winding and zooming in and out between buildings. The immediate theme of a rapidly modernizing world becomes apparent as the automobile provided a lot of freedom of movement across the world, sure, but also provided an additional level of status. Modernity and status intersect with everything in this film just as much as the themes of gender and the roles expected of the genders are. Zsolt arrives at the apartment of Anikó, his bride’s best friend and coworker, looking for solace as he wishes to cancel his marriage to Klári. Anikó is a nurse and dreams of becoming a doctor. The rapidly modernizing world allows her to pursue her education and her career, the desire to do so only tearing her apart as she grows closer to Zsolt in these moments, forming a love for him as well. Compared to Anikó, Klári seems vain and shallow - at least at first glance. Her first few songs are all about the status that marriage brings her, first among her family and then among her peers. The songs throughout each examine some aspect of marriage and love, but also sex and gender. Klári is preoccupied with marriage even if she claims that she still is dedicated to her career. She jokes that after marriage she can have a child every three years and take advantage of maternity leave. Planning on having five children, she jokes further that this way she can work without working for fifteen years. Her jovial and flippant nature does mask how insightful she is even if she is rather impulsive. The constantly shifting mood throughout the film is bolstered by such incredibly wonderful and surreal animation. Characters shift style very often and staying on model is not a priority. Art is to fit tone and theme, not the other way around. As the film grows more and more complicated with its love triangle, the more the film shifts in style. The abstract becomes the means by which the chaos is understood. The warping characters and backgrounds show an incredible display of skill from Kovazsnai and his team of animators. The multimedia approach further boosts this. There are moments of manipulated live action footage at times and even some collage. It shows a level of understanding of animation as a wholly unique medium of film unlike any other director of the era with the years of experimentation from Kovazsnai leading up to this very film where the forms of a person are the art of a person and the loneliness of a person can be represented by the misshapen volumes of those in love who they pass by.