The consciously composed image on the cover of her introductory CD also offers a range of the girl-topic: the lyrically musing girl, the mysterious and sorrowful beauty and the sexy scream of the hot chick. These characters function purely as icons. Specific situations can be conjured around them with difficulty since the first one is universal, while the other two are distinctively model poses. This is precisely why they are suitable to technically assemble the variation of the girl-topic and thus the CD as well. The first picture is on the back cover, the third on the inside cover, while the middle one is on the actual CD itself – let’s add: it is the first photo that frames all the scenes of the CD.

Beyond her girlish quality Dorka Gryllus’ other attribute is that she’s the wife of Péter Geszti, something that in the media gives her character and background. Break-up or no break-up this is a fact inseparable from her as the colour of her hair or the background of a magazine cover. They look good on joint photos since the husband is luckily fair-haired – but of course it’s not only about joint photos. There are disadvantages of the media trying to draw into its circle of „dream couples” someone of a wryer nature, whose ambitions stretch further than merely being part of a dream couple. And Dorka certainly has ambition as well as an intention to guard her private life.

The wedding is a good opportunity as far as the image is concerned to expand Dorka’s repertoire with elements of the classic woman – such as a clear-cut, seemingly simple dress and an old-fashioned bun. The added bit of seriousness and aging, however, with Dorka Gryllus is part of the wedding – she’s more the classic girl type. Clearly this is not dependent on age: Zita Görög, for example, despite being seven years her junior, employs this scheme more obviously and explicitly. I’m certain that Dorka Gryllus’ next image-constructing task will be that of the girl-woman transition.

The series of cover photos are telling even if the model principally has to interpret the character of the given magazine. The first three photos feature her as a young girl – in Praktika (Tips) magazine she’s a house-proud girl in a hand-knitted jumper with a kind line around her eyes, the type I’ve seen on children’s portraits. The first two Cosmopolitan pictures are typical too: designed as a Cosmo girl, she’s at once provoking and rejecting. The positioning of the hands on the first evokes a fiery career-woman who has a distinctly provocative look, while the expression of the panty-adjusting second is not in the least erotic. The last two pictures show a woman with her hair pinned up - what’s more the Mills and Boon-like beautiful but nondescript portrait on the cover of Évszakok (Seasons) is an expressly classic woman image. Not by chance is the relevant interview on marriage. To no avail is a different story compacted into each photo; the media is interested in the story of her marriage.

A brown-haired actress

The extent to which pigmentation and family ties influence the career of an actress is a big issue, but in the case of such a brown-haired girl with such well-known relations they undoubtedly have an effect. It’s not by the Hungarian directors of her generation that Dorka Gryllus is recognised. Hungary of older directors on the other hand is the Hungary of blond actresses. Dorka Gryllus is perhaps more fortunate from this point than, let’s say, Erika Marozsán, although she too is chosen when the theme evolves round ancient Hungary or Romany, is in some way exotic or if she’s needing to counterpoint blond stars (Bitches) or be fitted to them. It is characteristic that neither of the two scenes circulating on the internet from School of Senses emphasizes the flawlessly acting protagonist. This strikes one as particularly odd considering that András Sólyom was looking from the outset for an actress befitting the system of references of Psyche and – why should we deny it - makes her try on a blond wig in the film…

Her early roles are based on the topic of the dark, passionate woman. Dorka, though doing her best, is more of a playful character. The younger directors on the other hand, who’d be better at appreciating an interesting everyday quality, haven’t discovered her for themselves yet. The Lovy brothers were an exception in this respect – they really needed a Hungaricum for Mix. This may be the reason for her recently launched German filming career.

Her face,

As far as Dorka’s acting and especially her mimicry are concerned she’s fairly restrained. This has both its advantage and disadvantage: at best it has a natural and refined effect, at worst the characters appear identical and, instead of them, it is the actress we see. Both are true in her case. It’s a fact, however, that the work of the actor and the camera tend to add up, generally making restrained play worthwhile. For instance, on this sequence taken from Gloomy Sunday it is hard to decide what it is in fact that expresses the mounting inner tension of the character: the minimal changes of the face of the actress or the gradual close-up. It is precisely this that makes the tension penetrating and credible on film.

deportment

Dorka Gryllus’s strength is her posture, which is why she can tell stories in still photographs. Though not up to her, her films are often based on stills: Conquest was basically a sequence of stills, where every actor and extra – including the mythical stag – were instructed to look slowly upwards in a melancholy-meditative mood. Dorka was no exception either. In a different way, but nevertheless the same is true for Mix, which is filled with erotic pictures of Dorka. The reason the pose on the photo is so dynamic is because the facial expression is tastefully restrained.

and movement

It’s her well-employed posture and movements that make her a character actor along with the fact that she doesn’t appear to care about playing the beautiful woman. It is no coincidence that she frequently plays fallen women or those belonging to the dregs of society - and plays them well.

The four pictures in the top row are from the film El Niño, where Dorka assembles the character with the carriage of the head and the line of the neck and spine. What’s more, she portrays the changing of the character’s status within the scene. The other two pictures are from Kollaps and Dallas, where again we see a similar neck-spine angle, though this time with a different meaning.

Expressing passion with movement also helps Dorka in the range of roles of fallen women. Often an actor will concentrate the expression of emotions of his or her character on a single channel – Enikő Eszenyi, for example, uses her voice. This tends to make their acting stylised and requires an appropriate cinematic context. What may appear stylised in certain cases can in the perspective of a Kurdish girl or a Gypsy woman produce a natural style.

We are witnessing the emergence of a new range of roles and hopefully also the new image of an actress which is based on the paradox that not all classic girls become classic women.

(translated by Eszter Szász)