This lost Hungarian animated gem, Bubble Bath, is streaming free online

Bubble Bath, the delirious 1980 feature by Hungarian animator György Kovásznai, is now streaming free on Tubi and Kanopy and available on Eternal Family; Deaf Crocodile has also released a Blu-ray. It was the only feature Kovásznai completed before his 1983 death.

The plot is spare: prospective groom Zsolt flees on his wedding day and hides in the apartment of Anni, a nurse and friend of his fiancée Klárika. The situation becomes tangled by Anni’s attraction to Zsolt and Klárika’s oblivious arrival with a belligerent prize-fighter.

Kovásznai abandons conventional narrative for relentless visual and sonic shifts. Walls, furniture, and characters pulse and morph between portrait-like caricature, Cubist angles, and abstract geometric forms; the soundtrack hops through pop, funk, jazz, bluegrass, choral passages, and opera.

Hungary

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