The story of Zsolt Erőss, who disappeared in the Himalayas, and his grieving widow, Hilda Sterczer, is explored in the new Hungarian feature film, starring Zsolt Trill and Emőke Pál.

Grief is an extreme case of being touched, writes the Capuchin monk Guido Kreppold in his booklet "Crisis - the turning points of our lives", a state in which the self's ability to act seems to cease, its personality is fragmented, things just happen to it.

Things just happen to Hilda Sterczer, the days and weeks fly by after she received that call from Kancsendzönga. Kanchendzönga is the third highest mountain in the world;

Zsolt Erőss - Hilda's husband - the best Hungarian high mountain climber of all time, disappeared forever on May 21, 2013

with his partner under the 8,586-meter Himalayan peak, after successfully conquering the dangerous 8,000-meter peak with artificial legs, Sherpas, oxygen bottles, and other assistance.

The body of his young expedition partner, Péter Kiss, was also documented in a photograph, but Zsolté Erőss was not found for a long time, perhaps a recording was made of him in 2014.

They both stayed up on the mountain, in the so-called death zone.

Sándor Csoma's feature film Heights and Depths starts roughly from this "base camp", from the certainty that establishes the fact of death.

Flashbacks flash memories of the unfolding of a climbing love,

The heights and depths of Hilda and Zsolt's relationship, the beautiful ruthlessness or ruthless beauty of mountain climbing, the blessings of children in the parallel reality of city life. But "it's all just a moment", the memory sequences only counterpoint the real plot of the film: the increasingly hopeless battle of a strong woman with weakness, the struggle of living with grief.

Grief is an extreme case of being touched, when "there are no more questions", when the days just pass by in the bed of life. Sándor Csoma's film is a state of mind film of this touch, a moving work about the realization that mourning cannot be postponed. "When I wake up in the morning, I always hope that it was all just a nightmare," says Hilda, and in the meantime things don't wait, she has to take Gerda to kindergarten, keep her two-month-old son alive, and answer the calls of the tabloids hungry for disaster and tragedy and invitations.

Sándor Csoma's film is extraordinary because

brave enough to avoid Hollywood clichés,

and focus only on Hilda's inner development. This inward turn is symbolized by the continuously narrowing aspect ratio from the moment of the fateful phone call, the narrowing of the space from the widescreen to the square, from which the outside world is increasingly excluded. Sándor Csoma's film is also extraordinary because this Zsolt Erőss is not a superhero, not a saint, not a model husband and father, but a difficult personality, driven primarily by his obsession. Just as this Hilda is not a model mother or an exemplary widow, she is just one of many who were hit by tragedy.

Sándor Csoma's film is also extraordinary because he found the most suitable actors from the Carpathian Basin to film this contemporary story rooted in Transylvania: the duo of Emőke Pál (Hilda) from Györgyó and Zsolt Trill (Zsolt) from Subcarpathia lacks the stage manners typical of Hungarian films. , we don't doubt for a moment that we are seeing them themselves, lovers of climbing. As the plot progresses, the handkerchiefs appear more and more frequently in the audience for the honest outbursts of Enikő Nagy (Gerda), who was seven years old at the time of filming.

Only Hilda doesn't cry. His coolness is almost cruel. How could she cry when the shopkeeper, the show host and half the country are munching on her husband's death. How could she cry when the two children are there. "I don't need a doctor, I just have to pull myself together, Zsolt never went to a psychologist either," he tells his girlfriend. "But he didn't have to bury his wife," comes the reply.

Hilda didn't even have to bury her husband,

for he was the man who went up the mountain and never came down.

"I'm waiting for it to ring," he says, the aspect ratio narrowing. Everything breaks, and when the picture is almost dark, when we become defenseless in weakness, when there is no more, grace comes.

Redemption comes from being touched, the crying can come.

The film by Sándor Csoma can be seen in cinemas from September 22, 2022.

Gábor Muray's writing was published in the Mandiner weekly.

Featured image: Juno11 Pictures