A Hen’s-Eye View of Humanity

György Pálfi’s “Hen” posits the age-old question: Why did the chicken cross the road? The answer, as it turns out, is to get away from a fox on the prowl. Saying as much doesn’t spoil Mr. Pálfi’s movie as there’s more to it than a lone interaction between predator and prey. The title fowl has to traverse many things, not least of which is a sizable swath of Greece. Though we do get a glimpse of crystalline waters, “Hen” takes place in quarters of the country that the Greek National Tourist Organization would probably not consider advantageous.Mr. Pálfi isn’t Greek. He’s Hungarian by birth and makes his home in Budapest. Though he has several films under his belt, the director is likely most famous or, depending on what your opinion of copyright law might be, infamous for “Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen” (2012). Cobbling together clips from 400-some films, Mr. Pálfi crafted a love story that stars, to name a few, Rita Hayworth, Marcello Mastroianni, Uma Thurman, Michael J. Fox, Monty Python’s Graham Chapman, Walt Disney’s Snow White and, for the requisite romp in the hay, a porn actor or two. For a fleeting moment, the picture is racier than a run-of-the-mill rom-com.“Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen” is eminently watchable, a tour de force of culling and juxtaposition that is, notwithstanding its piecemeal nature, remarkably cohesive. Mr. Pálfi’s kaleidoscopic stunt is matched by “Hen,” in which he worked with a bevy of animals for a picaresque fable that encompasses, among much else, the efficiencies of food production, the hardships inherent in liberty and, in the immortal words of the Bard, the evil that men do. Renowned animal trainer Árpád Halász, the director’s fellow countryman, worked his magic.”If you can’t train a hen,” says Mr. Halász, “don’t even try it with dogs.” Whimsy is at the heart of “Hen,” but calamity, too, is in the mix. Taking cues from ancient Greek dramatists, Mr. Pálfi addresses “whether individuals can be absolved of moral responsibility if they are only passive participants in events.” The film begins with an explicit scene of an egg making its way into the world, whereupon we follow the resulting chick as it is shuttled through the dystopian environs of a factory farm, a scene reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s misadventures with machinery in “Modern Times” (1936). After being packed up for the marketplace, she is brought, alive and well, to a delivery truck whereupon a driver makes an executive decision that the hen, due to its dusky coloration, is too much of an ugly duckling. He removes the chicken from its confines and puts it in the cab of his truck with a notion that his wife will make a fine soup of it.The hen escapes and proves her mettle through a series of circumstances that are predicated both on dumb luck and conspicuous choice. Mr. Pálfi does a fine job in bringing will and personality to our protagonist without anthropomorphizing her beyond the limits of credulity. As if to underscore the point, the hen encounters a television playing a cut-rate cartoon of a chick being hatched; our star is steadfastly unimpressed. Equally unimpressive are the roosters encountered in the holding pens to which she is temporarily consigned by a mountainside restaurateur (Ioannis Kokiasmenos). They’re ugly things, these males, and sorely lacking in the vagaries of love-making.Which isn’t to say that the hen is immune to the callings of sexual attraction or that she has illusions about the avarice of humankind. Our taverna owner is tangentially involved in shady dealings, human trafficking being one of them, and our hen is witness to, and inadvertently responsible for, a horrific business transaction. Again, “Hen” is a far cry from family entertainments like Chris Noonan’s “Babe” (1995) or, God help us, David Frankel’s “Marley and Me” (2008), being more in line with Robert Bresson’s mordant donkey-centric masterwork, “Au hasard Balthazar” (1966).Mr. Pálfi’s picture is immensely clever, exhibiting more invention, scope and mercy than the inescapable pop culture talking point of 2026, Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.” Embodying tragedy is preferable to simulating it, and hope is better than hubris. “Hen” is something special.

A Hen’s-Eye View of Humanity

A Hen’s-Eye View of Humanity

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