Kota
Szabolcs Szõke
" Overall, it is a memorable score. "Written by Joep de Bruijn - Review of the music as heard in the movie
The 2025 film Kota (aka Hen) is a very visceral film in the veins of the previous works by Hungarian director György Pálfi (Hukkle, Taxidermia..). Kota toured across various festivals in 2025, only to receive a series of theatrical releases in 2026.
The viewer witnesses a survival course of a chicken intertangled with human drama.
Szabolcs Szõke composed the original score. He is an established musical figure incrossover projects, including Hungarian folkore, being a player of the gadulka, sarangi and kalimba, and with a wide, dynamic range in cultural instruments, atmosphere,and genres. In film his experience is limited.
For the score to Kota he performs a series of instruments himself - the gadulka, array mbira slash kalimba, friction drum, angklung and ektar - while featuring a series of instrument performed by others, inlcuding voices, a saw violin, cello, guitar, xylophone, soprano saxophone percussion and konnakol.
The film opens with the still largely continued method of how the bio-industry is constructed - killing the younglings massively - providing some social commentary, supported by the use of very evocative and ironic qualities of the kalimba and other instruments, and later, the rural, deep performances of strings in the veins of Mihály Vig set out the overall, deeper emotions of the hen, who escapes his destiny.
While not being dismissive of all the composer wrote, the heart and soul continue to be both the xylophone- and percussion based instruments, as well as the rural strings, enriched by other wonderful performances. As the hen goes on an adventure, experiencing everything, from love to 'enduring'' human trafficking, and finding solace in the end, these three instruments remain the most important. The xylophone instruments are usually not accustomed to being a very deeply felt resonating main instrument, but they for this score and in the context of the film, alongside the rural strings and percussion.
On the one hand, it is a unique György Pálfi take on the journey, while on the other hand there are some cliché dismissive scenes already so often seen in dozens of others film. In them, including the hen mating with females, all use non-original music from a Grigoris Bithikotsis song, a foxtrot by Mario Nascimbene and the Bolero by Ravel transcribed for voices, all used as a means to 'amuse'. Szabolcs Szõke' music sometimes adresses other small lesser moments of tongue in cheek and curiosity in the hen's character, but his music is far more interesting.
Perhaps Kota could be described as a road movie of a hen, covering all aspects of dramatic transition, but it still presented from the point of view of humans, with the tragedy of human trafficking and further organised crime misere.
The score adapts to these changing developments, as is evident in the use of fragmented, melancholic phrases as the hen is riding along on a truck carrying human trafficking victims, ending in tragedy, but not for the hen, supposedly 'dying.' Yet, in the overall score the level of curiosity and light music related to hen is maintained.
As the film ends, and the credits roll, a rather traditional original cue, feeling like an actual assembly cue - which it is not - is particularly strong in capturing all aspects of the film and score. I especially love the hesitance and small interruptions in the music, as everything as mentioned earlier comes together. Overall, it is a memorable score.
22-09-2026
The viewer witnesses a survival course of a chicken intertangled with human drama.
Szabolcs Szõke composed the original score. He is an established musical figure incrossover projects, including Hungarian folkore, being a player of the gadulka, sarangi and kalimba, and with a wide, dynamic range in cultural instruments, atmosphere,and genres. In film his experience is limited.
For the score to Kota he performs a series of instruments himself - the gadulka, array mbira slash kalimba, friction drum, angklung and ektar - while featuring a series of instrument performed by others, inlcuding voices, a saw violin, cello, guitar, xylophone, soprano saxophone percussion and konnakol.
The film opens with the still largely continued method of how the bio-industry is constructed - killing the younglings massively - providing some social commentary, supported by the use of very evocative and ironic qualities of the kalimba and other instruments, and later, the rural, deep performances of strings in the veins of Mihály Vig set out the overall, deeper emotions of the hen, who escapes his destiny.
While not being dismissive of all the composer wrote, the heart and soul continue to be both the xylophone- and percussion based instruments, as well as the rural strings, enriched by other wonderful performances. As the hen goes on an adventure, experiencing everything, from love to 'enduring'' human trafficking, and finding solace in the end, these three instruments remain the most important. The xylophone instruments are usually not accustomed to being a very deeply felt resonating main instrument, but they for this score and in the context of the film, alongside the rural strings and percussion.
On the one hand, it is a unique György Pálfi take on the journey, while on the other hand there are some cliché dismissive scenes already so often seen in dozens of others film. In them, including the hen mating with females, all use non-original music from a Grigoris Bithikotsis song, a foxtrot by Mario Nascimbene and the Bolero by Ravel transcribed for voices, all used as a means to 'amuse'. Szabolcs Szõke' music sometimes adresses other small lesser moments of tongue in cheek and curiosity in the hen's character, but his music is far more interesting.
Perhaps Kota could be described as a road movie of a hen, covering all aspects of dramatic transition, but it still presented from the point of view of humans, with the tragedy of human trafficking and further organised crime misere.
The score adapts to these changing developments, as is evident in the use of fragmented, melancholic phrases as the hen is riding along on a truck carrying human trafficking victims, ending in tragedy, but not for the hen, supposedly 'dying.' Yet, in the overall score the level of curiosity and light music related to hen is maintained.
As the film ends, and the credits roll, a rather traditional original cue, feeling like an actual assembly cue - which it is not - is particularly strong in capturing all aspects of the film and score. I especially love the hesitance and small interruptions in the music, as everything as mentioned earlier comes together. Overall, it is a memorable score.
22-09-2026